Happy Camper School

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Tuesday morning, we woke up early so that we could make sure that we had time for breakfast. We were warned that we would need as much fuel as possible to keep ourselves going during Happy Camper School.

At about 9am, we met the Field and Safety Training Classroom on the second floor of the science support center. We were introduced to our two instructors Trevor and Cecilia (CC), and then went around the room and introduced ourselves and our previous camping activities. We went through some discussion on staying warm and handling cold injuries.

At about 10:15, we packed up a hagueland (amphibious tracked vehicle) and a Piston Bully (tracked vehicle). We took these vehicles out to the instructors hut (i-hut), which is located out on the McMurdo Ice Shelf near Williams (Willie) Field. Once there we unloaded much of our gear, dug out the front door, and went inside for some brief lessons and a cold sandwich lunch. We all learned how to operate a camp stove as we were going to cook our own dinners on the ice in the evening.

After lunch, we prepared sleep kits and formed a cargo line to load the hagueland. We then walked about 1/3 of a mile to the edge of snow mound city. There was a storage locker with shovels, ice axes, sleds, Scott tents, and flags. We hauled all of these items out to our new camp about 50 yards away.

Once at camp, our first order of business was setting up the Scott tents. These tents are large and often the first structure set up during a field party put-in. They are talk, strong, and wind resistant. We learned how to stake the tent down using a “deadman”, which is burying the stake and tether about 3 feet into the ground with the stake horizontal, burying the stake, and then tying a trucker’s hitch to secure the tent. During this time, we had about 5 mile visibility with snow falling in huge flakes.

Once both Scott tents were up, we started our quinsy. This involves placing all of our sleep kits in a mound, covering them with a tarp, and then burying them under a lot of snow. It didn’t take long to get the quinsy built up and we had to let it set before we could excavate and remove our sleep kits.

In the mean time, we built an ice walls between the quinsy and one Scott tent and between the two Scott tents. The wall was oriented so as to block the southerly winds. This created a bit of wind protection for our tent city.

While we started setting up mountain tents, a group split off to excavate the quinsy. Jerome and I set up one of the mountain tents. Like the Scott Tent, we “deadman”ed all of the tethers. By doing this, we have created a much more secure connection between the tent and the ice than if we simply used a stake.

Once the tents were done and the quinsy was up, we were on our own. Trevor and CC went back to the I-Hut, while we were left to cook our own meals. This went quite easily. The weather had cleared a lot while we were building our wall and now everyone felt fairly warm as the outside air was slightly above freezing and we were wearing plenty of layers. At about 9pm, we began to melt ice as our water supply was almost entirely gone.

After dinner, we all started to turn in for a fun night of sleeping on the ice. In our tents, we had sleep pads to block the ice from us, a sleeping bag, and a sleeping bag liner. I used a hot water bottle to provide some extra warmth. At about 1am, I had to use the restroom. This is where you truly take your daily comforts for granted. I had to first put on all of my layers before I could walk out side and trek for about 50 yards to the restroom. This was not fun. Soon after, the wind picked up and started blowing in from the West, unblocked by our snow wall. Things started to get colder.

At 6:30am, I woke up and started packing up my gear. It took about 30 minutes to get fully dressed again in warm dry clothes. Once out of the tent, I helped break down camp. We had to have camp broken down and everything hauled back to the storage locker by 9am for pickup.

At 9am, the haggueland rolled in and carried our gear back to the I-hut, while were left to walk back. By this time, most of us were quite exhausted. At the I-hut, we were debriefed on the night and told how to change things if conditions were worse. We learned about VHF and HF radios and how to operate them in the field.

After the radio lesson and a brief lunch, we went outside and tested our radios. We contacted MacOps with little difficulty and the other group contacted South Pole. We then tried to contact WAIS Divide, but no one was listening.

After radio training, we had scenarios. The first scenario was to set up a snow wall, boil one liter of water with less than one liter of water to start and ice for the rest, contact MacOps, and pitch a tent in 15 minutes. Team work was critical. Since I was skilled at using the stove, I set things up for the stove to start melting ice. I then set up some shoddy deadman tethers because the one shovel was in use. Our final results were mostly successful with a not too secure tent.

Our second scenario was locating a lost team member in a white out. To do this, we had one rope for the group and we wore buckets on our head. It was a very frustrating experience, but we found our lost member in about 20 minutes.

After a bit of cleanup, we all boarded a Haggueland or Piston Bully and rode back into town. In town, we watched a video on the Dry Valleys and Helicopters. Finally, at long last we were dismissed.

We were not done for the day though. We had bag drag at 7:30pm. After a heavy dinner, we packed all of our non-essential gear and towed them to the MCC building where they were weighted and stored for paletization. We are scheduled to leave for WAIS tomorrow at 3:15pm.

After bag drag, I went back to the dorm and did some laundry before I fell into a very sound sleep.

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