Happy Camper 2

Here are some of the things we did during Happy Camper...

Megan and Dillon were our instructors.  We started with some discussions of hypothermia, frostbite, and layering in a classroom at McMurdo. Then we rode in a Delta or a van out to the ice shelf south east of McMurdo and fairly close to Scott Base. Here's our environment:

Discovery in the distance

Ice falls with flagged route on the ice shelf

Mt. Erebus with a volcanic steam plume on top

Weatherhaven lecture hall

Two Happy Campers

We started with lunch and discussions in the blue Weatherhaven.  It is important to eat and drink enough to keep your energy up and to stay warm.  There was lots of food!  Then we learned how to light, run, and fix Whisperlite stoves.  My dad designed these stoves, so I know them inside and out. They are the standard issue in the survival bags, because they'll run on almost any fuel (including kerosene, unleaded gasoline and diesel, but not alcohol) and almost any problem with them can be fixed with just the well equipped repair kits that are also included.

Lighting Whisperlites inside

Dawn pretending to learn how to prime a Whisperlite on the porch

After these lessons, we went out into the snow with the goal of surving until 9 am the following morning.  We started setting up our camp by erecting Scott tents.  These yellow, four-poled canvas structures are easy to put up, sturdy in the wind, and warm.  We learned to stake them out using a bamboo "deadman".  To place a deadman, first dig a hole about 50 cm deep and the length of your piece of bamboo.  Position the bamboo in the bottom of the hole parallel to the edge of the tent.  Next, cut a slot into the snow on the tent side of the hole for the line to go through.  Loop the line over the piece of bamboo and adjust everything.  Finally, bury the bamboo and tie the line tight.  If you have firm snow and put the bamboo in deeply enough, even a Condition 1 wind won't pull out the bamboo.  The line or the tent will rip first.

Megan tying a line to the bamboo deadman

Our two Scott tents

We also built a snow shelter called a quinzhee.  We made a pile of all our sleep kit duffel bags and covered it with the floor of a Scott tent, which is like a tarp.  Then we shoveled snow over it and packed it down.  After setting up 4-season mountain tents and doing various other projects, the snow over the duffels had "set".  Then some people dug into the side and pulled the bags out.  The snow shell stayed put, making a great shelter.  Then people dug down into the snow from both inside and outside the quinzhee.  The two holes met under the wall forming a door.  Having the door below the ground level helps keep warm air inside the quinzhee.  The side hole that the bags came out of was partly filled in and partly blocked with a bag while people were sleeping in it.  It also acted as a window.

Quinzhee building digging frenzhee

Opening the quinzhee door (down and right) and removing snow through the window (left)

Quinzhee window from inside

Here is our pre snow wall camp:

We had three other snow construction projects.  We built walls downwind of our not-so-wind tolerant mountain tents.

Guess which one is Bekah!  She's a master wall builder as well as a dancer.

And we dug a deep, long trough in the snow to act as a kitchen.  You could stand up to work the stoves.  I spent a lot of time there later in the evening melting snow, boiling water, and ladling out water for people's hot drinks and freeze dried dinners.

After getting us started on the kitchen and talking to us about personal snow shelters, Dillon and Megan left for a heated night in the Weatherhaven.  We had to survive the evening and night on our own.

Two people, Willy and Cheryl, built personal snow shelters (with help from many others) by digging down into the snow and covering the top with blocks of snow or sleds and poles covered with snow.  They took a while to build because the snow was hard packed and dense.  These shelters were one form of creativity.  Others expressed themselves in other ways:

A frame for Castle Rock, built by Bekah for another purpose

The ghost of Happy Camper past

An interactive community sculpture effort

After eating a freeze dried meal and consuming various amounts of candy, instant soup, hot chocolate and coffee, we each chose a place to sleep (a mountain tent for me), and slept in a better-than-survival-kit sleeping bag on better-than-survival-kit pads.  Those of us going in the field brought our own sleep kits, so I had a Snowy Owl sleeping bad from Feathered Friends, a foam pad, and a Thermarest, plus my own Wallcreeper sleeping bag.  I used the Wallcreeper as additional padding and insulation below me.  Many of us were plenty warm, including me.  Some people, however, got quite cold.  People vary a lot in their heat prodution at night, and how warm people stay depends on how warm they are when they go to bed, how much and the type of food they've eaten, how much exercise they've done relative to their normal levels, and many other things in addition to the warmth of their sleeping bag.  Keeping warm reliably really depends on knowing your body and being prepared with the right equipment.  A bottle of hot water can help, but it isn't always enough.

For me, the biggest problem with sleeping was the light.  I am used to getting up with the increasing light of morning when I camp.  However, it never got dark.  I'd wake up, peak through the narrow hole in my bag, see light and want to get up.  I'd check my watch, see that it was midnight or 3 am and go back to sleep.  I'll have to fix this problem quickly when we get into the field!

In the morning, we boiled more water, ate gorp, oatmeal, hot chocolate, instant coffee and soup, packed up camp, and cleaned up the area, leaving our walls, emergency shelters and quinzhee standing.  Then Dillon and Megan came back to camp, and we all moved back to the Weatherhaven.  Seated in the Weatherhaven with hot drinks and food, we talked about the night out and how we did or did not stay warm.  Next it was radio lesson time.  We set up high frequency (HF) radio antennae and used them to contact Mac Ops at McMurdo.  My group asked for the minimum air temperature overnight at Pegasus Air Field, which is somewhat near us.  The answer was -26°C.  It was cold, but we didn't have wind, which made the weather beautiful.

HF Radio Free Happy Camper in action

Then we worked through some rescue scenarios, including the infamous Bucket Head exercise where we try to find someone lost out in a white out, simulated with buckets on our heads.  My subgroup actually found our missing person.  I'd like to say it was due to good technique, but I think it was by accident.  You really don't want to get lost in a whiteout and rely on your companions to find you!

Happy Camper was lots of fun!

Chadden was the rope leader for the successful rescue!

(Larger versions of these images and a few more can be found at http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/sumner/recess/HappyCamper/index.html)