Happy Camper School starts out in the Science Support Center for a couple hours of lectures on how to keep warm (food, exercise and water) and how to recognize the signs of cold injury - frostbite, hypothermia, chilblains and trench foot. The class had 20 participants and 3 trainers. Then we get a few minutes to go back to our dorms and bring anything that we may have forgotten in our packs. We bring all of our Extreme Cold Weather gear and anything else that might help us keep warm. I brought plenty of hand warmers and toe warmers. Someone in class asked about bringing a wool blanket to help sleep with. I decide that is a good idea and grab mine. We get our sack lunches and get in the delta vehicle for the ride outside of McMurdo to the area for Snow School which is about 8 miles from town. I eventually share a tent with the person wearing the blue hat. Her name is Mary too.
This is my self portrait riding in the delta to camp.
Once we have a bit of camp stove and vhf radio training in a quanset hut, we walk out to the shed containing all of the camp gear we need in addition to the sleep kits and our personal gear. I did lead everyone in a Hokey Pokey to keep us warm at one point. The sleep kits included a mummy sleeping bag rated to -40 degrees, two half inch thick foam pads, fleece cozy for inside the mummy bag, a plastic mug and spoon. Camp gear includes four camp stoves (think back packing), food, shovels, pick axes, flags, water, and tents. After the trainers let us know what we are to do as a group - including giving vhf radio for check in to the radio leader, they left us to go to their warm hut for the night about half a mile away.
This is a photo of camp from half way to the outhouse.
The tall wall houses the kitchen area. The wall is to protect the stoves from the wind. The wind can get pretty bluster out there. We were lucky to have about only a half an hour of really gusty winds which kicked up the snow from the hill behind us. We had to boil snow to make water for our water bottles, dinner packets and any warm drinks.
The people in the photo above are working on digging trenches to sleep in. The trick to sleeping comfortably in a trench is to have an enclosed top. That seems to be the trickiest part, especially for newbies. I decided a tent would be just fine.
This is trainer Julian showing how to correctly use a camp stove. Never pour fuel into the fuel bottle with only glove liners as that is a sure way to get frostbite if the fuel spills on your hands.
This is a picture of Black Island which is about 25 miles away. The snow walls in the photo were what was left from previous camps. We used sleds to get some of these blocks for our kitchen and other wind blocks.
This is me after a night out on the glacier. Happy to have made it through the night (about -15 degrees) without getting frostbite.
Once we broke camp and put the camp gear back where it belonged, we had a bit more training in the warm quanset hut. We learned how to use the HF radio and what to do if someone gets missing in a whiteout condition. We were back in town about 2:30 and after watching a video on how to approach and exit a helicoptor correctly and practice getting the different seat belts on for a helicopter, class was over.
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