...and made it back with all my toes!

So Tuesday I packed my bags and walked over to the Science Support Center for my Happy Camper (Snowcraft I)class.  I arrived early so I had to wait for quite a while.  Eventually class started.  Everything I learned in the classroom was familiar as the Carpentry Shop had originally signed me up for the Snowcraft push-course, which is an abbreviated course with no outdoor stay. 

Eventually my fellow fourteen campers an myself piled into the back of a Delta and made out way out to the bus stop along the road to Williams Field just outside Scott Base.  Now, one of our two instructors had told us we could pack as much as we like because we were 'Car Camping', but this turned out to BE A LIE as we still had to walk over a mile with out bags.  Our trip went past the turnoff for out campsite and then up a road to a place I had been before, the I-hut I had helped set up two months prior with the Carpentry Shop.  We piled into the building and went over some more instruction, and then practiced using the stoves to light a cooking fire.

We had lunch and then went back outside to another little heated shelter to assemble our sleeping kits.  Lorrine and myself were picked at random to be 'leaders' for the sleep kit assembly, and we kinda organized an assembly line to put two sleeping pads, a wool blanket, and a sleeping bag into a large duffel.  Then we loaded the completed kits onto the instructor's snowmobile and again walked, back to the turnoff for the camp.  Once we reached the shed at the turnoff, we loaded the other supplies we would need, such as shovels and flag poles and the like, onto sleds and pulled them over to the campsite.

It was an interesting place.  Our campsite was flat and featureless, but all around it were the remains of older campsites, making it look like we were camping in the middle of some kind of ancient Antarctic ruins (sorry, no Stargate or Elder Ones).  Our instructors Dylan and Jen taught us how to set up the Scott Tents and snow walls and the other camp elements.

Our kitchen (above) was dug into the ground with seating steps along the southern side to allow us to sit in it while eating meals or having a steaming mug of whatever keeps you warm.  A snow wall was built along the North/Northwestern side of the camp to protect us from the winds that commonly came through, usually used in a more permanent camp so you do not get covered in snow.  I had fun carving out blocks of snow for the wall, but apparently kept carving them too big, even when I tried to make them smaller. 

Other than the tents we were shown how to make two other shelters.  The first was a survival trench.  Before the roof is constructed it looks like little more than an open grave.  When it is done, you climb down into a small hole, then under a doorway into a more open room which is large enough for one or more people to sleep in.  

The other snow shelter was called something like a 'Quinsie' Hut, though I am not certain on the spelling.  To build this we threw all our sleep kits into a large pile and buried them in lots of snow.  We then packed the snow in and walked away to take care of something else, then we came back later, dug an access hole into the shelter, pulled out the bags and started to hollow it out.  I started on the digging, going from having little room to even sit up in to having standing room inside.  Several women dug the entrance, which was a stepped entrance down to a very low hole into the hut.  I shoveled snow out the access door to Karen who then shoveled it away.  When you are done the access hole is covered over, leaving just the smaller hole for access.  Karen and another woman wound up spending the night in there, and the next morning I had to go and nearly climb inside with them to wake them up, as they had piled luggage against the entrance to block out the cold.

As with both snow shelters the snow insulates heat and sound.

The tents themselves are set up like you would normally assemble a tent, but to anchor the fly you have to burry special anchors in the snow.  These anchors consist of short sticks of bamboo we buried sideways with the fly chords wrapped around them.

Since we were 'survival' camping we had only what we would normally have in an emergency, though in larger amounts so it wouldn't be unbearable.  We had plenty of food, could make our own water, and had tons of coffee packets, cocoa packets, cider packets, tea bags, and chocolate bars to give us energy.  Meals consisted of dehydrated meals.  I was lucky enough to find something labeled 'Black Bart Chili with Beans'.  It turned out to be pretty good, though I still have gas from that two days later (our instructor also warned us that this is a result of not properly preparing the meal).  To cook the meal, you needed to opened the bag, remove the little silica packet, add boiling water, wait ten minutes and then enjoy.

You know you are a rugged outdoorsman when you have enjoyed a bag of chili in your improvised snow kitchen.

Two of the girls in camp got bored and wanted to get back at our instructors (who left to go back to their heated I-hut for the night), so after the instructors came by later to check on us before heading out on skis, they headed out to the I-hut and sabotaged it, making a mess of toilet paper and arranging the chairs around the door.  Later on Dylan came back to check on us, only to be called back by an urgent radio call by Jen, requesting presence immediately and without explanation.

At one point things slowed down and people headed back to their various dwellings I got bored and decided to build something, as I had two or three hours until it would be ten o'clock, my usual bedtime.  I started off by digging a large pit, maybe seven or eight feet across.  It was maybe two or more feet deep.  I then thought I might try and build a kind of igloo.  If I had made it how I wanted, it would have been made from large snow blocks in smaller concentric rings of blocks on each level.  Eventually I realized this would take too long on my own, and so just to make it as tall as I could before bed I started cutting my large blocks into smaller slices and stacking them until finally a couple blocks collapsed into the pit.  At this point I decided it was as good a time as any for bed, even if it were before my bedtime.

It took me a bit, but I found an empty tent (I had not wanted to just stick my head in, as people were sleeping and I didn't know which tents were claimed by women).  I also took in a large uninsulated jug of water we had as part of our supplies.  Let me tell you this: changing out of your ECW gear into sleepwear in a small mountain tent is second in awkwardness only to trying to get out of your ECW gear to go to the bathroom (which, by the way, was an outhouse over a hole three feet wide by fifteen feet deep).  It is a pain to peel out of not just your outer shell layer, but also your mid layer and underwear layer.  Luckily I only had to take off my jacket, boots, and change sweaters and I climbed into what appeared to be an extra large sleeping bag.  When I had it zipped up, the opening for my face was well above my head so I had to wiggle around some to adjust it.  I then slept about as well as I do in a normal bed, but it was more awkward.  For one, even though the airfield was over five miles away I could still hear (and even see the four planes parked there).  That didn't wake me, but was odd.  It was also very bright in the tent because the sun is ALWAYS UP now.  At one point I tried sleeping with my snow goggles on, but that was awkward as well.  As was draping a sock across my eyes.  I ended up adjusting the head of the sleeping bag to cover my eyes and slept fairly well, only waking up every hour or two as I normally would to try and roll over (which didn't work with no pillow) before going back to sleep.  When I would wake, I would either notice my feet were warm and my body hot, so I would open the opening on my sleeping bag more, or my feet would be chilly so I would close the sleeping bag.

The last time I had been camping (last summer in Wisconsin) there had been a tornado warning in the county that night.  There was pounding rain and loud thunder and bright lightning, but I feel I slept better through that than I did here (maybe because I had an actual pillow then).

I crawled out of bed sometime before six o'clock and helped Tara get the stoves running.  I had noticed my carpal tunnel was apparently aggravated by the work I had done the previous day (but I couldn't help myself, I had fun digging in the snow).  We sat around as camp slowly woke, then later on disassembled camp.  We ended up finishing this early so we all sat around the empty kitchen pit and talked.  I knew we should have hung onto a couple extra shovels and saws so we could build to keep occupied, but it was probably good I didn't irritate my hands further.

Finally the instructors showed up, and since everything was already packed up we grabbed our bags AGAIN and hiked AGAIN back to the I-hut for the rest of the class sessions.  Over brunch (finishing off the last of our box of lunch food from the galley) Jen said she had just one question.  She wanted to know if any of us noticed two mysterious figures returning from the I-hut the previous night.  We all feigned ignorance, but the guilty party gave herself away with her uncontrolled giggling (as I probably would have, had I assisted in the sabotage!).

We went over how to use the High Frequency radios, making calls to McMurdo station and even South Pole Station (after several failed attempts).

Then we did the 'Condition One' rescue exercise where we all donned our state-of-the-art Condition One simulation helmets and headed outside, attempting to find our way blindly to out instructor who was someplace outside.  We couldn't see him, and only had a way back to the I-hut with the rope we were all holding on to.  He ended up giving us a break because we were close to finding him, and the rope even went OVER him at one point, and also because he wanted to be found just for fun.  Unfortunately for him the two girls on the end of the room dragged him back by his wrists.  Once they got him to the door of the hut (I was already inside by this point) I grabbed him by a wrist and hauled him halfway across the 20-foot-long hut.

After that we went outside for another simulation.  This time we picked up gear, held out our arms and trotted behind our instructor Jen as she flew our 'airplane' about the sights of Antarctic until we crashed-landed.  All passengers were thrown from the plane and most of us survived, though the pilot and the entire plane mysteriously disappeared into a crevasse which closed up on them.  So we had to quickly establish shelter, set up the radio to call for help, and get rescued.  We threw into practice everything we had learned, but at one point I noticed one of our team members just standing around doing nothing, which I thought was odd.  Later on I saw her shivering, remembered the extent of the simulation and checked to see how she was doing, diagnosed her with hypothermia (on top of her initial 'broken arm' from the crash) and dragged her over to the tent where a few other girls took over and treated her for hypothermia (they treated her for real, packing the poor woman into bundles of layers until she was probably at risk for heatstroke!).   A job well done on my part for spotting that.

At the end of it all we walked back to the Delta stop, waited, and then got back on the Delta and headed back into our little piece of what passes for 'civilization' down here.

All in all it wasn't a bad experience.  I might be tempted to do it again if it weren't for the fact I have to wear so much ECW.  Maybe next time, if it is warm enough, I'll skip some layers out of practicality.  I would not mind if they set up day trips just to go play in the snow, though.

Enough for now!  It is late and my hands need a rest.  I'll catch you up on some more events next time!