Happy Camper

December 6, 2013
just outside McMurdo Station, Antarctica

Day 1 at the station marked the start of Happy Camper, the field training program.  We started out with a classroom portion with powerpoints about cold injuries and risk management.  It was hard to stay awake due to sleep deprivation.   I was happy to begin the outdoor portion of the training.  We headed out of town and onto the ice.  It was beautiful out there, especially when clear skies allowed a view of Mount Erebus, an active volcano (right).  It looks so close for being 30 km away.

Out in the field, we set up camp.  This involved erecting a Scott tent (the big yellow pyramid) and one mountain tent per two people.  We then built a wall of snow on the side of the tents we expected the wind to be directed.  Our kitchen was a square hole in the ice, deep enough so that the ground was at counter height, and then we placed our stoves at the edge of the hole.  

It was not quite dinner when we finished so I suggested making a dining room table.  Here also, the ground was the table and we dug a circular ring for our feet so that we could sit normally and insulated the seats with our sleeping pads.  Dinner was humble - dried food packets.  I turned in early, pulling everything that might freeze and as well as those items that needed drying into the sleeping bag with me: toothpaste, contacts, several mittens, hat, socks, boot liners, sunscreen, and lotion.  At any hour of the night it is bright so the eyemask helps quite a bit.  I stayed plenty warm throughout the night both because the tents are like greenhouses and because the sleeping bags are very thick.

December 7, 2013

On the second day we were trained in the use of high frequency radios and then simulated low visibility by wearing white paint buckets on our heads.  The scenario was that a member of our team was lost and we had to find him outside.  We could only leave the hut if we had a paint bucket on our heads, and our only tool was a rope.  Our strategy was to all go out spaced along the rope and sweep in a half circle with an anchorman at the door of the hut.  It worked out alright at first but we became tangled on a solar panel which was on a rod about a meter from the hut.  When we went out again, we started on the other side of the house.  None of us remembered how steep the snowdrift against that side of the house was.  A few people fell, taking a few more with them.  The instructor bailed us out after some struggle.  No group as of yet has been successful in "finding the lost person" by making it to the instructor's hideout.  It was quite a comical finish to a fun camping experience.

All photos compliments of TJ Stastny