12/6/2001, McMurdo
Hello,
Sorry it's taken so long for me to post a journal entry. As the "senior" member of this group, it seems to be taking me longer to get my act together. Basically, I've been huff'n and puff'n to keep up with the young'uns!
My "real" job is teaching 5th grade at Toyon Elementary School in San Jose, California. Last year I had the great fortune to be one of 16 teachers selected to participate in the TEA (Teachers Experiencing Antarctica and the Arctic) program. Funded by NSF through the offices of Polar Programs and Elementary and Secondary Informal Sciences, the program is administered through Rice University, CRREL (Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab), and the National Museum of Natural History.
Last August I had the greater fortune to be invited to participate in a field expedition with ANSMET. After lengthy medical and dental exams, I finally was PQ'd in mid-November with a November 26 departure. I cut it pretty close. It was worth the frenzy. The team, the project, and the experiences have been incredible!
Many of my friends at home won't believe what I've been up to. The picture, above, is just the tip of the iceberg (no pun intended). If you'd like to hear more, at length, you can also check my TEA journal entries at: tea.rice.edu (Click on "Meet the Teachers" and scroll to my name.)
12/5/2001, Windless Bight
We're back from our combined shakedown / survival school overnight trip. Basically, every Antarctic field party has to go through some form of survival training; and we combine ours with a basic test of the gear we'll be taking to Meteorite Hills. We left early on Tuesday morning and drove to a spot called "Room with a View", essentially in the middle of the long peninsula between Mt. Erebus and McMurdo. We did a bunch of training with ropes, including going on a walk among a bunch of huge crevasses while roped together. This morning we continued with specific simulations of how we would try to rescue someone who might fall in a crevasse, and by dinner time we were home with most stuff packed away.
The picture above is from the first day of the shakedown trip, on our way out to our campsite. Castle Rock is the small volcanic stub to the left, while Erebus looms on the right (with lenticular clouds mantling the crest). Our team, snowmobiling away from me, is in the middle left. Yipes! Better go catch up..........
Tomorrow a Twin Otter aircraft tries to take 3 more loads of stuff out to Meteorite Hills; mountaineer Jamie Pierce will go along to help unload the plane. Friday will follow with the same plan, and if things are going well four of our group may deploy for real to Meteorite Hills at that time. Then, on Saturday, the four remaining folks join them. Only a day or so of the civilized world left for us this year.
12/5/2001, Back in McMurdo
We just returned from our shake down! It basically was an overnight "testing the systems" camping trip. It was a lot of hard work, with tons of information to absorb about field safety (mostly pulling people out of crevasses!), loading sleds, putting up tents and tons more. At the end of the day (and believe me - it was the end - Maggie and I, being the newcomers alone in a tent, finally got to eat our dinner of dehydrated beef stroganoff at 10:00! Thank you John for all of your help!) we did got to do a little relaxing in our tent inside our super cozy sleeping bags. Here is Maggie snuggling up in hers!
12/5/2001, McMurdo, Antarctica
There's one question that is always asked when someone finds out you are going to or have been in the Antarctic. Its a question that people seem intensely interested in but are often unsure whether they should or how they can ask it. The picture above shows the answer which is "the same as elsewhere just a whole lot colder".
The 'facilities' at our shake down camp on the slopes of Mt Erebus were luxurious. We had a foam seat and a barrel, wow. We also had a fantastic view to accompany the luxury. A carefully positioned skidoo (the one with the union jack is my one) makes a fairly decent wind break, necessary when the icy wind bites into any exposed skin, if you know what I mean. The facilities were so luxurious that I found myself regretting the fact that I didn't have a paper to read.
Some people might notice that the flag is the wrong way up. This traditionally means "in distress" which I was. During training I was roped directly behind John Schutt when he disappeared through the ice into a crevasse. My response was immediately to drop onto my ice axe, facing away from him and digging in my feet (a position known as "self-arrest") whilst John's weight pulled on the rope. Cari (who I'm still not talking to after the picture of my butt) who was roped to me dutifully did the same. For the next 25 minutes I lay on my front in the snow and the freezing wind adding my weight to a pretty pathetic anchor I'd botched whilst the other team members put "figure eights on a bite" and "prussiks" onto ropes, made anchors and then finally hauled John out of the crevasse.
John had fallen down a crevasse on purpose. Okay it wasnt a vertical crevasse and he was more uncomfortable than in danger, however, it was a pretty realistic first try at crevasse rescue. To make things even more interesting whilst traversing back out of the crevassed terrain my leg disappeared up to the knee through a snow bridge. Through the hole I could see the icy walls of the three foot wide crevasse extending into its blue, apparently bottomless depths. Injuries in crevasse falls are frequently caused by crushing since they get narrower downwards and tend to wedge victims, and puncture injuries caused by ice axes and crampons. I've made a mental note not to fall down any crevasses and to spend more time on the loo.
