'Happy Camper' Snow School
Trip Start
Aug 16, 2007
1
19
61
Trip End
Apr 07, 2008
McMurdo,
Antarctica
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
I was recently chosen for a morale trip to Happy Camper Snow School!
A morale trip is offered when your supervisor wants to reward you by giving you a surprise day off from work to go off station and do something fun. Some of the morale trips that are offered are Happy Camper Snow School, Penguin Ranch, helping divers, and snowmobiling trips.
Happy Camper Snow School is fun because it is a two day morale trip! The main purpose of Happy camper Snow School is to teach you how to survive the harsh Antarctic conditions in an emergency situation. For science research groups and others who will be traveling beyond McMurdo Station it is a required course, but for the rest of us it is a fun way to get out of town for a few days. It is by no means a vacation day!
The morning of the first day begins with some classroom time as we learn what the next day and a half will bring and all of the safety precautions we will need. We all got a chance to meet each other and learn what outdoor experience each member brought to the team. There were several DA's, fire fighter's, cargo crew and about 6 science research folks. After our brief overview we gathered our field lunches and loaded up into the delta and headed out to the field. We were about 15 miles away from McMurdo Station in the center of the sea ice with nothing but white solitude in every direction.
Once the delta dropped us off at our destination we had to load all of our food and camping gear on to snowmobiles and take it out even further into the middle of the sea ice where we would be staying over night. We had lunch and a brief overview on how to use the camping stoves and then it was time to start setting up our camp!
There were 3 types of shelters that we built: Scott tents (12 ft. canvas tents) and mountaineering tents, a Quinzhee, and trenches. We set up two Scott tents as the perimeter of our camp and then built a snow wall to connect them. The snow walls were made by digging a 1 ft. trench in an L shape. We then took a hand saw and cut large blocks out of the compacted snow and put them onto sleds to assemble near the tents. We had a chain of people making blocks, pulling sleds, setting up the wall and shaving the edges so it was as stable as possible. This wall would be our main form of protection from the wind and harsh elements. *I should note that we were fortunate to have perfect weather (15 F) and only had to pretend it was harsh! Although during the evening the wind did pick up a bit.
Next we started on the Quinzhee since it would take a bit of time and would need to set a few hours before being dug out. We piled all 22 of our sleeping kits into a tall stack and covered it with a tarp to begin the mold for the Quinzhee. After an hour of piling snow on top of it and packing it down we were ready to let it set and finish setting up the rest of the camp.
We set up 6 mountaineering tents behind the wall between the two Scott tents. Others who wanted a more 'natural' sleeping shelter chose to dig trenches. A trench is a 6 ft. hole in the ground the size of a coffin and is covered with ice blocks for protection. Those with creativity could build shelves and steps into the trench to make it more 'homey.' After all of the shelters were set up we went back to the Quinzhee and dug a small hole on the side to pull all of the sleep kits out. We then dug a small tench in the front of the Quinzhee with a ramp up into the center of it. This was now the entrance to the Quinzhee and the other side hole was re-covered.
In the beginning of this adventure I thought I would want to stay in the Quinzhee, but upon crawling into it to check it out I realized I was a bit more claustrophobic than I had thought. So instead I opted to stay in a Scott tent with two others. Although I will say that the Quinzhee is by far the warmest of the 3 options. If only I could have gotten over the fear of having the whole thing come crashing down on me!
Once we were all set up our instructors gave us some last minute tips on cooking dinner and tearing everything down in the morning and then they left us on our own for the night. We spent the rest of the evening refining our sleeping structures, cooking dinner (boiling snow for dried food packets, Yum!), and watching some near by Kiwi's kite ski (skiing with a huge kite, like kite boarding).
The next day we packed everything up and headed back to the I-hut for some more survival training. We learned how to use several different types of radio's, and even got to try them out by calling the South Pole! We also had a "survival scenario" in which our imaginary plane crashed and we needed to set up a small version of our camp to show the instructors we knew what to do and ho to properly use all of the equipment. Our last test was on communication. We had a scenario in which someone got lost in white out conditions and we needed to find them without putting ourselves in harm. We had to put white buckets over our heads and lead each other on a rope in a sweeping motion looking for our 'victim'. Unfortunately we did not find them, but we did learn a lot about communicating in such situations and the overall importance of communication in survival situations.
At last we returned to station for a de-briefing and watched a few videos on helicopter safety. We then got a chance to sit in helicopter seats while learning how each safety harness worked and how to talk to the pilot through the head set.
It was a great 'boondoggle', as we call it! I was completely exhausted by the end of it and happy that I also had the next day off to recover! I will never complain about my bed again!
Comments
the human ice cube
so exciting! i think i may have to check it out for myself