I survived!!

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  McMurdo, Antarctica
Sunday, October 7, 2007

Hello once again! I have now been in Antarctica for 5 days and what a five days it has been. We have been doing lots and lots of safety and machinery training. One of the most intense yet informative trainings I have been to was called Snowcraft I or Happy Camper School. Happy Camper School was a two day, overnight course where we learned survival techniques, basic communications, and what to do in different scenarios. We began the class with classroom information and then all loaded into a huge truck thing and headed to the field. Williams Field to be precise. In the field we learned how to build snow walls using big blocks of hardened snow (think igloos!), how to set up tents (some people really had no idea), how to build igloos things (ours collapsed, oops), how to dig trenches to take shelter in, how to set up HF (shortwave radios), and how to search for someone in a white-out.

The place we stayed was absolutely beautiful. In Antarctica, you have no sense of distance nor elevation which is one reason safety is so hugely focused on. There are also all kinds of dangers on shelf ice such as holes and crevasses. From where we camped, we could see ridge that was lined with crevasses. A few years back, a hiker actually fell into a crevasse and perished. Anyways, back to distance. One of the most impressive and exciting things I saw while at Happy Camper School was Mt. Erebus. It is the southerly most ACTIVE volcano!! Yes, active! We could see smoke coming out of the top which was totally cool. Most of the rock around McMurdo is lava rock produced by Mt. Erebus. From where we stayed, the base of Mt. Erebus looked to be say 6-10 miles away and only about 7K or 8K feet high. Quite the contrary! It was actually 35 miles away and 13,000 feet high! I couldn't believe it.

I had so much fun digging in the snow at Happy Camper School. I felt like I was 10 years old again digging a cave to hang out. It was the most fun I had playing in the snow in a long time. Although, my arms are hardly working today because they are so sore. I can't remember if I mentioned weather condition in my last entry, so here it is again to give you all a picture. There are 3 weather conditions: 1, 2, and 3.
Condition One
Weather conditions when visibility is less than 100 ft., or wind speed is greater than 55 knots (more than 60 mph), or wind chill is greater than -100°F (-38°C).
Condition Two
Weather conditions when visibility is less than ¼ mile, or wind speed is between 48 and 55 knots (about 55 mph to 65 mph), or wind chill factor is between -75°F and -100°F (or between -24°C and -38°C).
Condition Three
Weather conditions, from anything better than a Condition Two, up to a beautiful sunny day.
With that said, we had Condition 3 (a nice condition 3) the first day and boy was it great. About half way through the night (night even though the sun doesn't go down) the weather had a change of heart and went to condition 2. One "great" thing about Happy Camper School is that it is camping. True camping. I froze! Around 3am I was so cold I couldn't stay in my sleeping bag any longer. I put on my bunny boots and went for a jog. I had no idea it was condition 2 when I was running around the camp, but at that point I just wanted to warm up. Camping in Antarctica is the most humbling experience I may ever have. Mother Nature is a powerful force that cannot be reckoned with. I hope I never have to camp here again, but you can never be so sure. If I see a storm coming, I will not waste any time firing that snowmobile up and getting the heck out of there. The weather is so unpredictable, but since there is no pollution you can see forever. I would sit and watch clouds coming in from the south pole and wonder if it was going to hit us or clear up before it came. The worst storms came up a valley by White Island and Black Island, but lucky for us that area stayed calm for our little adventure.  South Pole sends the winds to us, but really. It is crazy "watching" winds coming. You are probably actually seeing clouds and blowing snow coming, but it is still incredible.

The other crazy phenomenon I have seen is a certain cloud. And of course, I can't remember the name of the cloud. It starts with a "n" and only occurs in the poles. Anyway, it is a cloud where the ice crystals are tilted just right so the whole cloud is in fact a prism with all colors of the rainbow radiating out in all directions. It was awesome. I have no other words for it. I did take a picture, but I have no idea if the picture captured the full beauty of it or night. I hope it came out a bit for all of you to enjoy, but it is something I will never forget.

We are just about ready to get out to our field. Another Weddell seal team went out yesterday to quickly survey a couple areas and there were only 2 or 3 adult seals on the ice and no pups yet, so we are way ahead of schedule. We hope to be in camp on Wednesday (Tuesday your guys' time). Thursday we'll head out and check out the study area on snowmobiles. That afternoon Kelly, Adam, and I will take a 45 min helicopter ride to survey our sites from the sky to check for any major crevasses and to see where the seals are (if any yet). Before all that excitement I have two more trainings here in town. First is sea ice safety where I learn to probe the ice and assess crevasses (pretty important). On Tuesday morning, I'll have snowmobile training and get the keys to my very own snow mobile. Doesn't that rock!?!!! On Friday, we have a safety training at our field camp near Big Razorback Island. If I come across a good map, I'll definitely post a link so you all can get an idea of where in the world I am as well as where the seal colonies are.

That is about it for now. I have yet to see any wildlife except for that really weird species, Homo sapiens. This may be the last entry for a while. Hopefully the next one will be chalked full of baby seal stories!
Over and Out,
Sascha

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