Arrival in Antarctica and Happy Camper School

I'm now at McMurdo Station here in Antarctica.  We left our hotel bright and early (6 am) to catch the shuttle out to the U.S. Antarctic Program logistics base in Christchurch.  When we got there, we discovered we were going to get to fly to Antarctica in an Airbus 319 instead of a military aircraft (C-17 or C-130).  Apparently the Australian Government has leased an Airbus for transporting their researchers to Antarctica and are running 10-12 flights this season for the U.S. in exchange for cargo transport on some of the U.S. C-130's.  We actually had stewardesses (and snacks, but no meals) and a very pleasant flight down to Antarctica.  I even got to go up in the cockpit while we were flying and talk to the pilots.



Getting on the plane in Christchurch



We had to get on the plane with all our ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) gear either on or brought in our carry on bag.  The flight only took about five hours and the clouds cleared as we got near the continent so we were able to take a bunch of pictures from the plane.



The Drygalski Ice Tongue (a glacier that's flowed off the coast and is sticking out over the water) is the big chunk of ice in the center.  Terra Nova Bay is the open water to the right.


We landed at a runway they build every year out on the sea-ice (there are permanent runways on the glacier nearby, but an airplane would need skis to land there) and then were taken into the base in this:

We got to base, looked around a bit (the base itself is kind of ugly), got our housing (I'm in a room with one other guy right now), found our lab space, got dinner and went to bed.

The next day, the four out of five of us in our group who hadn't done it before had to take a two day survival school course known as Happy Camper School (required for anyone who is working away from base).  After an hour or so of lectures, they drove our class (20 people) out onto the McMurdo Ice Shelf (an ice shelf is part of a glacier that's sitting over the ocean).  We learned how to use camp stoves, how to setup a couple of different kinds of tents, how to make a wind wall out of snow blocks and how to make snow trenches that you can sleep in.  We started building the camp and the instructors left about 6:30pm.  The weather was really good for this area: not much wind except for a couple of hours the next morning and temperatures only got down to 0F.  After we made dinner and melted snow for drinking water, some people kept working on snow trenches while a few others worked on an igloo (which they didn't finish until about 1am).  I just went on a long walk with a couple others as it was a beautiful "night" (the sun is up 24 hours there right now).

Scott tent we set up

Working on the snow wall

Two people spent the night in this igloo

Our camp

We spent the night out in the camp.  I was in one of the tents and it was actually pretty warm inside the sleeping bag.  I woke up about 5:30 when the wind picked up.  Everybody got up around 6, had breakfast and then we took down all the tents and filled in the snow trenches.  The instructors came back around 8:30 and took us to a hut where we learned how to use a couple of different kinds of radios.  We then did two practice scenarios:  one where we were on a plane that had crashed and one where we were in a blizzard and someone had gotten lost leaving the hut to go to the bathroom.  The white-out one was more fun, because to simulate not being able to see because of all the blowing snow, we had to try and find the bathroom while walking around with buckets on our heads.

Blizzard training with the buckets

Other than a little sunburn, Happy Camper school was a lot of fun.  I've heard of people having to do it when it was really windy, but we got pretty lucky with the weather.  We got back to base late afternoon yesterday and after some work in the lab and dinner, I saw that last night was one of only two nights a week that they have basketball in the big gym (they do have a basketball court down here).  I was pretty wiped out from Happy Camper school, but I didn't know how much free time I was going to have so I played anyway.

I was pretty psyched about playing at the southernmost basketball court on the planet, but I found out that there is actually a court now at the South Pole station, so I'll have to settle for having played at the 2nd most southerly court.  It was still pretty cool.