I just got back from an amazing adventure in snow school, or as our base refers to it "Happy Camper School". The pictures above this post are from snow school. Snow school is a survival course that all people have to take before they do any research off base in our field camps. They also use snow school as a moral trip here, or boondoggle, to offer to employees who generally are base bound because of their jobs. Other boondoggles are helicopter trips, trips to penguin ranch, dive tending, or snow mobiling to Mount Erebus.
I suppose a lot of people would not be "happy campers" if they were told they were going to have to eat freeze-dried food, sleep in below zero conditions, and melt their own water. However, most people here see this boondoggle as one of the best offers so I was excited and up for it, even if I was going to get cold! My worst fear was that I was going to be miserable because most of you know how cold-natured I am, but I was pleasantly surprised how well the equipment issued to us worked and I was very comfortable throughout the ordeal. I use the word ordeal because our day consisted of stove training, hauling of equipment on sleds to our campsite, quarrying blocks of snow/ice with saws and shovels, building three snow walls, building a quinzee hut out of snow, setting up our mountain tents and then reorganizing our camp to be prepared for a blizzard. I was very warm the whole time because it takes a lot of work to walk in snow, haul things on sleds, move blocks of snow, and shovel. We all worked as a team and had our camp ready just in time when severe conditions arrived. We spent the night in condition 2 and 1 (very windy, blowing snow gales, and way below freezing). Condition 1 is the most dangerous condition here and you are not allowed to leave the building on base when it is condition 1. Well, I was camping in these conditions and walking around some. The visibility was so bad that I could barely see the tent next to me...it was a total white out. The next morning our instructors tried to come and pick us up and the vehicle got lost in the whiteout and stuck. The search and rescue crew had to come and get us because we were so remote and conditions were bad. Isn't that cool and crazy at the same time?
3 comments:
How do you stay warm? I know you said you lined your bag with a fleece blanket and used your parka, yet I know you had to get cold. Are the tents thick?
Hey Ash,
Here is how I stayed warm.
They had us exercise before we got in our bags...I went for a 20 min walk. I had to work hard to walk because it was blowing hard and the snow was hard to walk in, so I was very warm from the effort. We also heated up water and put it in our Nalgene bottles, put a sock over the bottle, and put that in our fleece bags next to our bodies. Those bottles stayed warm for 6 hours! We slept in several layers because our survival school taught us that it is a myth to "sleep naked" or with less layers. Funny thought that some people might try to sleep naked here while camping, eh? The down bags we had were mummy bags and the tops cinched down over your head. I also slept with two fleece hats on my head. Last, but not least, I threw some foot warmers in my socks. Those foot warmers actually got so hot that they were scorching my feet and I had to move them! The type of tent we stayed in was a Scott tent. They have used these on historic Antarctic explorations. They are made of breathable canvas so your stove fumes don't suffocate you, but they are very thick and easy to put up quickly.
Staking a tent is a lot of work here because you have to "dead man" the stakes. "Dead manning" stakes means you have to dig a t-shaped trench in the snow about 2 feet deep. You lay the stake in parallel to the ground, two feet under, with a tie-down tent rope wrapped around it. You bury it in the snow and make some slip knots to tighten it. I know this is hard to picture. If you don't do it this way, the snow will not hold a stake that is just put in the snow like you put a stake in the ground.
Love you sis,
Andrea
I do believe in putting the snow around the tent. We do that at the beach, it weighs it down. I am so proud of you. I bet your legs are getting muscular. You Rock Sis! I love you. Ashley
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