Snow School, Stormy Weather, Christmas, Lab Work!

8:05pm Tuesday, 12/27/2011
31°F (but it got up to 40°F this afternoon)


I haven't written in a while because lab work and the holidays have been talking up much of my time. I promised that I would elaborate on my snow school training, aka Happy Camper, so I shall start with that. Happy Camper is two days of snow camping and survival training. I participated in it from December 21-22. We had a great group of people that ranged from early 20s to late 50s. Our group was also very small, which was nice for the dynamics of the camp.

Solstice Happy Camper Group!

After we were bused to the middle of nowhere on the sea ice (Ross Ice Shelf near McMurdo), we had lunch, practiced using backpacking stoves, and then had to set up camp under the tutelage of an instructor. Camp consisted of ice walls constructed from snow blocks/bricks, tents, a kitchen, and trenches, which were optional sleeping quarters. Snow bricks or blocks are cut out of the snow in what we dub a "quarry" using a saw and shovels. We transported them on sleds, as we did our gear from a shed that hosts all the Happy Camper tools and gear to construct a camp.

Looking roughly in the direction of McMurdo, this was our
camp, but minus the kitchen. The ice/snow wall around
the tents was to protect us from the wind. 

While most of the tents in the above photo are dome
tents, this is a Scott tent and it has a two foot wide
skirt around it that gets buried in the snow, which is
why the tent was temporarily surrounded by shovels.

After setting up the tents and the wind wall, which was three large snow bricks high, we built a kitchen. The kitchen was dug down a bit into the ground, especially the counter area for stoves. Our kitchen also had lovely bench seating, which I shared a photo of in my last post.

Stove on the counter in the
kitchen melting snow for
drinking water. The counter
is at ground level.

Happy campers in the kitchen!

After we'd mostly set up camp our instructor suggested we decide on a camp leader/manager and then he left us to our own devices at ~6:30pm to make dinner and sleep out on the ice shelf on our own. He was about half a mile away the whole time in a large cabin. We made lovely freeze dried backpacking meals for dinner, tidied up camp, warmed water for hot water bottles and hot beverages, and then headed to bed. Well, some of us headed to bed. Joel, another Ohio State student down here, and I constructed a trench in the ground to sleep in. We dug a deep, narrow trench, cut out two alcoves for each of us to sleep in, and then cut long, think bricks to cover the top of the trench. It was an amazing success! We had plenty of space, as the trench was about as deep as I am tall (so ~5ft 6in), and it was plenty warm. 

Joel and me constructing the trench. We
don't have it as deep as we want it here and
haven't started our alcoves yet.

Inside our trench from Joel's perspective
looking over at me in my alcove. The "door"
is a fleece blanket.

It took us about five hours to finish our trench, so we didn't get to bed until a bit after midnight. Then in the morning we had to fill in the trench so that no one wandering around the area in the future might get injured by falling into our trench. After constructing snow bricks and digging out or trench for hours the day before, shoveling snow into our deep trench was tiring and Joel and I were plenty sore.


The next day in Happy Camper we made breakfast, took down camp, and transported everything back to the nearby cabin or into storage. This second day of training consisted of learning to use various radios/comms and practicing our survival skills and knowledge by acting out survival scenarios. The first scenario was a plan crash where we had an injured person and we had to tend to him and set up camp. The second scenario was that there was a white out and  we'd lost someone a few hours ago that had gone out to the outhouse. This scenario involved putting buckets on anyone's head that was tasked to head outside and search for our lost person. Joel and I volunteered for that and we looked pretty silly walking around outside with  buckets on our heads trying to make it to the outhouse while tied to each other and tethered to the cabin so that we didn't get lost.

Learning to use an old military radio

Joel (right) and me (left) searching for our fictitious lost
coworker in a "white out." I am at the end of the rope and
have a broom in my hand, which is not in this photo, that
I am using as a white cane. 

Happy Camper was a blast, but it was also a great learning experience. I have no experience camping in the snow and I have very little survival training beyond basic first aid and CPR training. It was the highlight of last week.

We had some interesting weather the day after I got back from Happy Camper. The wind was really strong through McMurdo and visibility was poor. All travel in and out of town was postponed and the weather was deemed Condition 2, which I had not experienced yet.

The view from our lab building on December 23. Usually
it's clear and you can see the dorms to the left and the
hills behind McMurdo perfectly clearly.

It's hard to capture the wind in a photo, but
these flags kind of represent the force the
wind that day. The flags were quite noisy. Also,
we can usually see the landscapes across the
ice sheet that are beyond the flags.

The Christmas holiday weekend here was very well celebrated. I went to several concerts and parties that showcased the close and talented community that inhabits McMurdo. The holiday meal was served on December 24th and consisted of numerous tasty entrees, side dishes, and desserts, like lobster tail, stuffed pork, pot roast, beef Wellington, duck, sweet potatoes and squash, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cake, pie, and cookies. It was a great meal.

I haven't made it out to the field yet. The weather on December 23rd prevented our proposed day trip to Taylor Valley to collect water samples. I have been helping organize for another trip to Taylor Valley, which we'll hopefully do tomorrow and stay overnight and get back the 29th. Thus far the researcher from Ohio State that I am working with, Kathy, and I have gotten and instrument working/running that measures DOC (dissolved inorganic carbon) and can measure TN ) total nitrogen in water samples. We are both unfamiliar with the instrument and it has new software relative to how it was run/used last year, so we are taking everything step by step. 

I should get to bed as I hopefully have my first stint in the field tomorrow. I will try to be better about posting more frequently. Hopefully Taylor Valley provides excellent photographs!