LETTER FROM ANTARCTICA LEE ANN PIPKIN
The big secret about McMurdo Station (don't let this get out) is that the austral summer is milder than winter back home. We've been having beautiful weather. It's been sunny and warm, about 25F, no wind - just perfect.
We don't want to let this information get out because Antarctica is supposed to be a harsh, dangerous, brutal place, and we are all very brave to have come down here.
,p.
I guess I shouldn't send any pictures of people in tee-shirts playing Frisbee. Of course, if your car gets stuck in the snow in the northeast you'll probably be able to walk to the next exit before you expire. You have to be a bit more careful here.
So, to prepare us for the dangers of Antarctica there is "Happy Camper School".
This is the nickname for field safety training. The search and rescue team teaches some basic survival skills to people who are going to be out in the field. Happy camper school teaches you how to put up tents securely so that they don't blow away in the killer winds, how to light the stoves, how to build a quick shelter out of snow, how to operate a radio, and a bunch of "common sense" advice about thinking ahead.
At the beginning of the season, they train those who are going to be out in the field and really need to know this stuff to survive. When they have room in a class, they train people who work in offices and never go anywhere off station, but who want to have a little fun. I went to happy camper school a couple of weeks ago. I got two days off from sitting in front of the computer to spend out on the ice shelf all bundled up in ECW (extremely cold weather) gear.
After a morning of indoor instruction in common sense - always be prepared, wear warm clothes, don't do anything stupid, don't panic after you have done something stupid - twelve of us piled into a big tracked vehicle and went out to camp.
We put up a Scott tent - looks like a teepee, and a mountain tent - just your average tent - and cut some blocks of snow with saws to build a wind block around the mountain tent.
Next we learned how to build a "quincy" (not sure where that term comes from). You throw your bags on the snow, put a tarp over them, and shovel a big pile of snow on top of that. Then you dig underneath the pile and you've got yourself a snow cave.
You're supposed to try not to sweat
while you are doing this so that you don't get wet and then cold. After we finished the quincy, some of us went off and dug out old snow caves from previous classes, and some of us built trenches.
The instructor said he'd never seen a group spread out so much. There were people in their own little caves all over the place. Part of the reason for this was because you don't get any privacy in McMurdo and here was our chance to be alone for a little while, even if it was underneath a pile of snow in the middle of nowhere.
Part of it was bad group dynamics (it's a good thing this was only practice). I built myself a little trench out of snow blocks. You cut the blocks of snow with a saw (the texture of the snow makes this very easy) leaving a hole just a little bigger than your body and then lean the blocks together over the top of the hole, making a roof.
This is quick and easy but not as warm as a snow cave. With a few people in a snow cave I guess it can get pretty warm. It was a lot of fun to build the trench but I didn't sleep in it. I tried for about a half an hour, but the floor of the trench was bumpy and cold and it was such a small area that every time I moved snow brushed off the walls and roof and melted on my sleeping bag.
I moved to the mountain tent and spent a warm and comfy night. The instructor sleeps in a "Jamesway," a Korean War era surplus canvas Quonset hut, about a half a mile away. We had a radio to call him if we needed to.
The next morning we got up, had some hot cocoa, packed up camp and went over to the instructor's hut to debrief. Our last lesson of the training was a fake emergency.
We all got back into the vehicle and we were told to pretend that it was an LC-130 making a crash landing. When the vehicle stopped we were to grab our gear, get out of the "plane", run away from it, set up two tents, two stoves, and the radio. We managed to get everything done in 11 minutes, but didn't do such a great job watching out for each other (that bad group dynamics thing rearing it's ugly head).
The instructor had secretly told one of our group to wander off during the exercise and act hypothermic. We were all so busy beating the clock that we barely noticed.
Chris was acting wildly while we were making sure the tent stays could sustain 50-knot winds. Finally, Alicia noticed Chris stumbling around, yelled, and went off to Chris's aid.
In real life poor Chris would probably have died. Oops. Well, we had a good time despite our poor showing. It was nice to be out of "the big city" for a while.
Things are winding up in McMurdo. A major conversation staple is "when is your redeployment date?" Only a month now until I'll be flying back to Christchurch, New Zealand.
One sign of the end of the season: the Coast Guard Cutter, arrived in the sound a couple of weeks ago and has been slowly cruising back and forth from the ice edge to town. It takes a long time to break the ice. The bow of the ice breaker is designed so that it will slide up on top of the ice and then the weight of the ship cracks the ice under it. I guess it's easier to break hard ice than soft.
The Coast Guard is doing this so that two vessels can get to McMurdo. The first will be a fuel vessel that will deliver a year's supply of fuel. The second is a cargo vessel called the "Greenwave" that comes from a Navy base in California. The great part about the ice breaker cutting a channel is that there will be more wildlife around with the open water. I'm hoping to see some whales and penguins before I head for home. Lee Ann Pipkin supports computers in McMurdo Station, Antarctica, and walks on glaciers.
Third Antarctica Report
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