Happy Camper



My Antarctic home for a night.

Frigidly cozy:)

Snow camping in Antarctica? Heck yeah! I was extended the opportunity, recently, to take part in an extreme weather survival training course and excitedly accepted. The program is called Happy Camper and it is an overnight camping trip/training where professional mountaineers train a group of people in survival techniques. The course is mainly to train the scientists and support staff going out to the field camps where they are conducting their various research projects. I was able to join in with them for the training. The first day we spent some lecture time in a classroom and then headed out to the ice. The instructors led us through things like how to set up a field camp, building wind walls with snow blocks, cutting the snow blocks out of a query, making a snow kitchen, how to set up and secure tent in wind, how to dig a snow trench to sleep in, how to use the backpacking stoves, how to avoid and treat frost bite and hypothermia, and how to keep yourself and your gear warm while sleeping. It was all really quite interesting. After the whole day of instruction and training, the leaders left the 18 of us to finish building our camp. And, for those of us who chose to sleep in trenches, were able to finish digging those. I was named camp manager after raising my hand to volunteer NOT to be manager, ha ha. So my job was to make sure everyone was accounted for and OK. I also was given the emergency radio in case we had to call our leaders who where staying in another location (in a hut) not too far away.

Getting ready to build camp! Saws and shovels!

We were given the choice of sleeping in a trench or a tent so, of course, I HAD to sleep in a trench! Who gets to say they slept in a "snow cave" in Antarctica??? The basics of snow trenching is that you dig a long and narrow trench 4-5 ft deep, carving out a wider space deeper down to be able to lay and move around a bit. You want the top to be narrow in order to put a roof on more easily. I cut some snow blocks with a saw and made a pitched roof over me leaving only a small opening to crawl down into. The hard part for me was getting in and out with out snow getting all over me and my sleeping bag. Getting to bed and out again in the morning was the worst part. I stayed relatively warm all night long. I took a hot water bottle to bed with me which was awesome. I didn't choose to seal off the opening to my trench, so that also would have helped insulate a bit more. But I was cramped and semi claustrophobic already. I was glad that it was daylight all night cause I think I would have been a bit more freaked out if it was dark out. Getting out of bed and into cold gear in the morning was not the most fun thing I have done, ha ha! My coveralls and gloves froze solid. I tried to lay on them for awhile, like we were told to, but couldn't defrost them so I had to put on some other things I brought instead. It was cold getting out, for sure. I can't imagine what it would have been like in REALLY cold weather. We had sun and mellow wind the whole time (temps prob in the teens or twenties). It is pretty amazing the extreme conditions that people can survive in if properly trained and equipped.

Come, sit, and hang out in the dining room/kitchen. Hot water is on!

Happy Camper Camp!  Every flag is the entrance to a trench.

The second day we had to wake up and break down the whole elaborate camp we had just built, knocking in our trenches and all, which was a little sad. Then we spent the rest of the day learning more skills like how to use a long-range -VHF -military radio to set up emergency communications, practiced deploying and securing a survival camp more quickly, how to think through risk assessment and develop rescue plans, and how to navigate in condition 1 (very poor, low visibility) weather. We were given scenarios and then had to act out what we would do. They the end of the day, we were all beat and gladly loaded up ourselves and gear to head back to the station. It was fun but also a lot of work which I remedied with a nice little nap when we got home:) It was a cool experience and I am lucky to have been given the opportunity!

The lovely wind-wall

Hi!!!