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2007

Date: October 30, 2007
Location: McMurdo Station and Snow Mound City, McMurdo Ice Shelf
Latitude: 77 degrees, 51 minutes South
Longitude: 166 degrees, 40 minutes East
Temperature: −24°C (−11°F)
Wind Speed: 9 knots
Wind Chill: −32°C (−26°F)
Elevation: 50 meters (164 feet)
Written by: Nicky

Today at breakfast we bid our goodbyes to Luke, Luci, and Josh as this is the day they fly out to the winter–over site to begin digging out and setting up camp. Elena and I leave breakfast to methodically check that each of our bags has been packed with all our ECW gear and plenty of extra warm layers to ward of the cold that awaits us at Happy Camper School (Snow Craft 1). Fortunately, the weather is beautiful and there is nothing ominous in the forecast.

This class, which it's interesting to note has a male to female ratio of approximately 5:1, begins with an animated lecture about cold weather injuries and a run–down of the way the next two days will go and what we should bring. This part is over quickly and then its off to Snow Mound City. As we board Ivan the Terra–Bus, Elena and I have one more bag than all the other Happy Campers as we plan to use this class to test out the sleep kits we put together on Sunday. We stop approximately a kilometer from the the camp site, load our gear into snowmobile trailers and then start walking. Walking is a good way to generate warmth...especially if your boots don't fit quite as well as you thought and you trudge more so than you walk. After a brief lecture in the instructor's hut we head out to what will be our camp for the night to begin setting up.

We begin by determing the direction from which the worst storms come (in this case the South) and then setting up two Scott tents perpendicular to this direction to stand as part of our camp wall. Scott tents are rated for 80 knot winds, so its a good bet they'll be okay. Part of learning to put the Scott tents up is knowing a truckers hitch. Many people (myself included) have difficulty remembering knots, but we're told that knots are simply loops and bites (bytes?) and when thought of this way, we all become trucker's hitch whizzes in no time. Next we begin to quarry snow blocks for our camp wall. This first requires digging a one–foot deep trench and then sawing the most cookie cutter perfect blocks you can, popping them out with a shovel, and towing them on a banana sled over to the Scott tents. This is also a good way to generate heat. Just as our wall begins to take shape, its on to the next lesson. All of our sleep kits are covered with a tarp and then buried in snow to form a mound that once shovelled out will be a quinzy (spelling?). The snow must be a foot and a half deep above the tarp and densely packed. Luckily, the sintering of snow grains takes place quickly when they're being pummelled by 10 shovels. Next we discuss additional details of camp layout and then the set up of a mountain tent is demonstrated.

At this point, we've got a good start on all we'll need for the night, so we break for a long discussion about what the expectations are for the evening (that we all eat dinner, that we finish camp, that we watch out for one another, that we all be motivated enough to get up and eat breakfast and that camp is broken down and we're at our "helicopter" pick up point by 9AM (no earlier)). Also, at this point, the only miserable wind we've had all day picks up (also interestingly from a direction not protected by our snow wall) and the combination of just standing around and that wind are truly unpleasant (not a good way to generate heat). When the discussion of expectations is over we are all happy to go back to quarrying, setting up tents, digging personal sleeping trenches and styling out the kitchen. We're in the midst of some experienced individuals who suggest that we create a windwall off the the quinzy and expand the trench at the entrance of the quinzy to create a lowered kitchen. The self appointed kitchen crew begins the task of boiling water and before we know it, its time for dehydrated dinners! After dinner, when the majority of camp is set up, people go about individual projects in order to keep warm. Elena and I, dedicated troopers that we are, carve the letters I T A S E out of snow blocks and set up a mini photo shoot.

When the call of sleep can no longer be ignored, the real work starts. Two people in a mountain tent with all those clothes and sleeping bags is tricky with a capital T. We go for a short jog before jumping into our bags (since we all know a hot turkey in a cooler in Decemeber stays hot, right?) and then struggle to change our socks, stuff our fleece liners into our sleeping bags, and getting them zipped all the way up. If we weren't tired before, we certainly are now. Lets see if we sleep.

Date: October 31, 2007
Location: McMurdo Station and Snow Mound City, McMurdo Ice Shelf
Latitude: 77 degrees, 51 minutes South
Longitude: 166 degrees, 40 minutes East
Temperature: −20°C (−4°F)
Wind Speed: 9 knots
Wind Chill: −28°C (−18°F)
Elevation: 50 meters (164 feet)
Written by: Nicky

After a relatively sleepless night (on my part) Elena and I awake in our mountain tent to frost on the ceiling and the tops of our hats. Here's a tip we didn't learn until the debriefing: its important to ventilate your tent. In fact, even in the coldest weather, many experienced winter campers don't zip their tent doors at all. Other had awoken earlier and there was boiling water to make oatmeal and hot beverages. Oatmeal would have been good, but it seemed like a lot less work to just eat the candy bar I had slept with in my coat pocket, so we do. Most everyone is up and we all have camp broken down and towed to our "helicopter pick up site" well before our scheduled 9:00AM pick–up time. Despite this, true to their word, the instructors do not pick us up early...helicopters are never early.

Once back in the instructors (heated) hut, we each talk about the tricks we used to sleep warm and ate yesterday's sandwiches. One of the most amazing things to me about being down here is the frequency with which you are encouraged to eat! We had a lesson on risk management and then learned to use VHF and HF radios. Our group even managed to call South Pole on the HF radio and get a weather observation! Our Happy Camper experience culminated with 2 survival scenarios. In the first scenario our truck catches fire and all nine of us escape with only one survival bag and our HF radio. In the next 30 minutes we radio for help, begin to boil water, create a snow wall, set up our only tent, and identify the signs of and treat one our crew members for hypothetical hypothermia. In the next scenario, one of our crew has left the instructurs hut to use the outhouse and has not returned after twenty minutes. We open the door to find a whiteout (simulated by white buckets put over our heads) and have to determine the best search pattern and means of communication to find this person. During the first attempt our plan (or our communication skills) are so poor that we get wrapped around a snowmobile far from where we're supposed to be searching and the front of our team doubles back and crashes bucket heads with the second half of our team. We use this as an opportunity to regroup and fine tune our plan. Our next effort goes smashingly well, but is cut short by time constraints. We've got to book it to our pick up spot. We've survived snow school!

Once back at McMurdo Station the day is far from over. We run into Paul, Gordon and Brian (who all arrived safe and sound yesterday) at their Happy Camper refresher course outside the FSTP class room and plan to meet for dinner. After dinner Elena, Dan B. and I manage to cut, staple, and seal 153 meters of lay flat for the 2" cores and then by some stroke of luck find all the cut lay–flat we would ever need in a box in the lab! Word is we have Crevasse Training at 8AM tomorrow morning...this is a very fortunate break.