I was lucky, (if you want to call camping outside at about -15F lucky), enough to go to snow craft school I, commonly referred to here as “Happy Camper”. We spent 2 days and one night outside with “lectures” in between. There were 20 students and 2 instructors and we students built snow blocks and walls, set up Scott tents, (specific tee pee like tents for the Antarctic built to withstand 80 knot winds), regular Sierra Designs mountain tents, and a quinsy.
I
IThis is the Scott tent.
I spent the night in the quinsy with 2 other women and we were quite toasty. 
The next day dawned bright and sunny with hardly any wind.
We broke camp and ran a couple scenarios. One was the bucket head scenario where we went out looking for a member who never came back from the outhouse in a simulated white out - hence the buckets.
That's me in the middle with the girl head, to the left of the guy all in black.
The other was just a regular safety scenario – set up a tent, boil a quart of water, set up and call town on the HF radio and build a snow wall. Something to use all of the skills we learned.
It helped that we had good weather because I was missing my down pants, jacket, and
-40F sleeping bag. We also had a lot of upbeat people who kept our spirits high.
The day before I left for Happy Camper I took a bunch of Polies, those folks going to the South Pole, to the air field for a tour of the Kiwi Herc, the New Zealand C-130, and I got to tour along. That was pretty cool. I felt like a 5 year old because that night I had a private tour of the firehouse and trucks. Trucks and airplanes – woo hoo!
Tomorrow I start my 5:30am – 5:30pm schedule for 6 weeks. I wanted to see what it would be like to get up and start my day very early. I also didn’t want to work too late into the evening because dinner ends at 7:30 and most activities start at 6:30. We’ll see about activities after a 12 hour day.
Last week I did make it up Ob Hill. There were several occasions where I had to stop and hold on to a rock for fear of getting blown over. I was the only one on the hill until the bottom when I ran into several other folks coming up. I am anxious for the snow to melt so I can go up in tennis shoes. 2 pairs of long johns, wind pants, 2 shirts, 2 jackets, hat, goggles, neck gaitor, and hiking boots are cumbersome. Today I am going to Scott Hut and maybe the loop around Ob Hill. It’s a pretty mild temperature day, -2F, but it’s that wind again bringing the temps down to -22F.
If you all want to see current weather conditions etc check out the McMurdo home page at http://www.mcmurdo.usap.gov/.
Thinking of you all and missing you.
It helped that we had good weather because I was missing my down pants, jacket, and
-40F sleeping bag. We also had a lot of upbeat people who kept our spirits high.
The day before I left for Happy Camper I took a bunch of Polies, those folks going to the South Pole, to the air field for a tour of the Kiwi Herc, the New Zealand C-130, and I got to tour along. That was pretty cool. I felt like a 5 year old because that night I had a private tour of the firehouse and trucks. Trucks and airplanes – woo hoo!
Tomorrow I start my 5:30am – 5:30pm schedule for 6 weeks. I wanted to see what it would be like to get up and start my day very early. I also didn’t want to work too late into the evening because dinner ends at 7:30 and most activities start at 6:30. We’ll see about activities after a 12 hour day.
Last week I did make it up Ob Hill. There were several occasions where I had to stop and hold on to a rock for fear of getting blown over. I was the only one on the hill until the bottom when I ran into several other folks coming up. I am anxious for the snow to melt so I can go up in tennis shoes. 2 pairs of long johns, wind pants, 2 shirts, 2 jackets, hat, goggles, neck gaitor, and hiking boots are cumbersome. Today I am going to Scott Hut and maybe the loop around Ob Hill. It’s a pretty mild temperature day, -2F, but it’s that wind again bringing the temps down to -22F.
If you all want to see current weather conditions etc check out the McMurdo home page at http://www.mcmurdo.usap.gov/.
Thinking of you all and missing you.
Cheers,
Gretchen
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