Earlier in the week, Chris and I attended a two-day snow survival skills course. Attending (and passing) the course allows us to leave McMurdo Station for travel to the drilling rig, which is remote, and to the Dry Valleys on a planned field trip. Around here the course is referred to as Happy Camp, but I'm sure you can imagine that this is somewhat of a misnomer. After a half day of lectures on survival in extreme cold, we were taken out to our camping spot on the sea ice. There were 18 of us, and we were put to work putting up two Antarctic (so-called Scott) tents, four regular mountain tents, and a wind break made out of blocks of snow we carved out of the ground with a steel saw. Two industrious guys dug a snow cave and slept in it. Our instructors then left us to make dinner (dehydrated packets of pasta that we added hot water to), endure the night, then break camp in the morning by a certain time.
The night was excruciating, although the snoring that rang around the camp suggested that at least two people were able to get a full night of sleep. The air temperature was 22 below zero Fahrenheit (that's 33 below in Celsius), with a wind chill of 62 below. Chris was able to get a bit of sleep, but I spent most of the night awake and shivering. I did situps, drank water, and ate chocolate to keep warm. Getting up for a bathroom break was out of the question, but you can ask me about the mechanics of that some other time...
The next day we went through some drills to simulate emergency situations. One exercise was meant to simulate a situation where a team member becomes lost in a white-out. We wore white buckets on our heads to simulate the conditions. We were given a rope and told to make a plan. What a learning experience! Trying to communicate was virtually impossible because we couldn't see or hear anything. We found our victim, but managed to get ourselves so tangled in the rope that if the situation were real we would have found it difficult to find our way back to the shelter.
We were more successful with the next situation. In this case, we were told that the vehicle we were traveling in had caught fire and burned to the ground. A big storm was coming, and one of our team members was going hypothermic. We needed to set up an emergency camp, and fast! We ripped open the survival kit (provided whenever anyone travels remotely). It included a tent, a sleeping bag, a stove, a shovel, and some food. We also managed to salvage the ham radio from the car. Our task was to pitch the tent, stabilize the hypothermic person, build a wind break out of snow blocks, boil some water, set up the radio, and make contact with the base. All this in under 20 minutes. To our great surprise, our group managed to do it -- and all in a howling wind.
Both Chris and I came back rather worse for wear. I had a low-level cold going in, and now have laryngitis. Unfortunately, Chris has frostbite (2nd degree) on three of his toes, and now has to be extremely careful while it heals.
Upon reflection, the experience gave me a huge appreciation of the early explorers who braved the conditions for months at a time. I also have a much better sense of my own capabilities and the extremes that I can endure.
UPDATE: Chris' toes are completely healed. We both look back on the experience with appreciation, as we have a good sense of what we would do if we were stuck somewhere remote in bad weather.
