DC on The Ice: Antarctic Field Training- Day 2

Ok, so day two of Antarctic Field Training started by us getting up and trying to eat our muesli before the milk froze! The weather had changed a bit and it was rather cloudy. Our instructor Ian then came back, and we packed up the polar tents.

Once everything was packed up, we headed to the A-Frame to warm up and have a bit of a talk about our camping experience. The A-Frame was a building that the Americans had thrown out, and was just sitting round not being used, so the Kiwis (back in the ‘70s I believe), Skua’d it and dragged it out onto the ice shelf for use as an escape from the madness of Scott Base. Apparently it was a favourite of Ed Hillary, and he spent one of his last, if not his last night in Antarctica out there.. It’s a really cool place, and is only a 40 minute ski from base.

Following this, we headed to a steep area of snow near the Scott Base skifield, and practiced self arresting before heading back to base for lunch! In the afternoon we went out and learnt about the sea ice (the ice which generally ‘breaks out’ each year, and refreezes in the winter). The ice in front of Scott Base is actually sea ice, although it hasn’t broken out since the early ‘90s I think. So on the sea ice, we learnt how to drill through it to the water below to determine the depth of it. This is used to determine whether you can drive on the ice, or specifically, to work out a profile of the ice around a crack in it, to evaluate the likelihood of it breaking under the weight of your vehicle.

The pressure ridges are big ruptures in the sea-ice caused by it getting crushed between the ice shelf (which is essentially a glacier) and the land. It causes these amazing shapes and colours in the ice.

That pretty much wrapped up the field training. Last night there was a presentation/movie by a woman who was in the team that became the first women to ski to the South Pole in the early ‘90s (the AWE expedition). It was contrasted in the movie with a Randolph Fiennes expedition which was going on at the same time, and that was pretty funny.

Today we’ve been sorting out our trip to Cape Roberts, which is from Saturday till Tuesday. There is an ‘ice train’ (a convoy of vehicles towing sleds) going up to Granite Harbour to move a camp at the same time, and they’re staying in the same hut as us. So there’s 8 or 9 people who will be wanting to stay in a 4 bunk hut. So we’ll be staying in tents the first night, before they head back to Scott Base the next day. Turns out it takes a while to sort everything out- a lot of forms to fill out and signatures to get before you can go into the field. But we’re getting through it, and are pretty much good to go.
So now, onto the photos!!!

The camp in the morning..

This is the preferred method of getting a polar tent to the appropriate size to fit inside the bag!

Loading up the Hagglund- not much horizon definition!

At the A-Frame.

Practising self-arresting.

About to go onto the sea-ice. The three Wannigans (the huts on sleds) got towed out to the Antarctic Heritage Trust's camp at Cape Evans where they're going to be starting the restoration of Scott's Hut (the one we started surveying the other day).