The next picture is of Darren Roberts and Me. There will be more about Darren later.
Next, we had to carry all of our ECW down a long "road" made of packed snow on the glacier.
We arrived at two buildings that would serve as our last indoor warmth for the next two days. Here, our instructors taught us about how to use the stoves that are in every survival bag. A survival bag has enough survival equipment for two people and food for three days. It has a tent, sleeping bag, shovel, stove etc. I was really happy to learn that each survival bag as a MSR Whisperlite stove, the same camping stove I have back home! I guess if it is good enough to survive in Antarctica, it will be just fine for all my camping needs as well. Here are some pictures of us in the classroom and outside putting our sleeping kits together. A sleeping kit has a down sleeping bag, two sleeping pads and a fleece sleeping bag for inside the down bag.
After loading all of the sleep kits on the sleigh, we had to take another long hike with our big orange bags to our actual camp. The first danger that needs to be addressed in an emergency situation is the weather. By setting up a shelter, we were able to have protection from the wind and the cold. The first thing that we did was set up a Scott tent. These are the same kinds of tents that Robert Falcon Scott and his men used during their first Antarctic explorations. They are two walled tents with large, metal poles inside. They also have a long, thick skirt at the bottom that we piled snow onto. This is done to prevent wind from blowing into the tent. The Scott tents are the tall yellow ones that you will see in many of the other pictures.
Next we were tasked with building a wall around our camp to protect the entire camp from the wind. To do this, we used ordinary hand saws and cut out large blocks of snow from the top of the glacier. We stacked them on top of each other like bricks and built a massive wall around our camp.
After we worked on the wind wall for a while, we learned how to set up the kinds of tents that are actually in our survival bags. These are standard issue mountaineering tents that campers use for winter camping. We also learned some amazing tricks on how to stake a tent down in the snow. Since a stake does not have much friction when pounded into snow, it can be pulled out easily. Instead, we tied each rope of the tent around a stick of bamboo, dug a two-foot hole, set the bamboo stick in the hole horizontally and then buried it. The anchor we created was incredible! The name of that kind of anchor is called a “Dead-Man.”
Next, we learned how to set up a camp kitchen. It was really incredible to see all of the different ways that snow could be cut and molded to make seats, table tops etc.
Finally, our instructors taught us about how to stay warm and what to do when getting ready for bed. I think that the most profound thing that they said was about our resources. While we had all of the tools to be able to survive, our best resource was each other and our combined knowledge of the outdoors and the conditions. Here we are having our last chat before our instructors left us for the night. They went back to the teaching huts about 1/2 mile away and slept in a warm building :)
After they left, we got water boiling to make hot chocolate, coffee and tea. However, we had to melt ice to get liquid water so that process took a long time. The pots had to be monitored constantly. Later, we used the boiling water to cook our dehydrated meals for dinner. Before I had dinner, I needed to make my shelter for the evening. I decided to make a snow trench. I used a saw to cut out large blocks of snow from the ground and then started digging down. There were stairs to get all the way down because by the time I finished, it was as deep as my shoulders and over 10 feet long. I also made it about 8 feet wide on the inside because Darren said that he also wanted to sleep in a snow trench. Here I am early in the building process.
And here I am enjoying tea in my trench.
My friend Dannie Woodward and I standing in the trench.
Dannie started to get cold, so in order to get the blood pumping, several of us started playing with a frisbee that Dannie had brought.
After frisbee, it was time for dinner, here are several pictures of the kitchen, melting snow to boil water and the camp area around the kitchen.
As it got a later, I took a walk away from camp to get a good picture of if from afar.
A couple of people then decided to get creative with the snow blocks that they were cutting out. They made a sculpture that says HC 2011. HC stands for Happy Campers. A few pictures of the sculpture, Marissa and I standing on the wind wall next to the sculpture and then us jumping off in unison. One of the campers brought a Barbie doll that her friends gave to her before she left. They called her Antarctica Barbie. She has white lips and a white nose (frost-nip) and black fingers (frost-bite). We all had a great laugh when Antarctica Barbie wanted pictures next to the sculpture as well.
Here is our whole Happy Campers group in front of the wall. I am sitting on the ground holding a pink coffee mug, directly under the "C."
Boiling more water before bed. We all poured boiling water into our water bottles and put our water bottles in our sleeping bags to warm them up.
We were all having issues with our eyelashes and hair freezing. Check out Marissa's hair and my eyelashes!
Here I am in front of camp before bed.
Darren Robberts and me in the snow trench as we got ready for bed. Also, the front entrance and our view of our “roof.”
That is our our first day of Happy Campers ended.
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