The Land of Ice

January 6, 2013

Hello from the ice! I made it down to McMurdo last Saturday (the 29^th) and the first week here has been an absolute blast. We flew down from Christchurch on a Hercules, which is an aircraft from WWII. We were essentially crammed in like sardines surrounded by all of the cargo, so it wasn’t the most comfortable 7 hour flight. It was pretty exciting finally setting down on the ice. The runway is on the Ross Ice Shelf, and it is a 1 hour drive from the “airport” into town. When we landed, the runway was especially mushy, so it ended up taking us two hours to finally get into McMurdo. Below is the airport shuttle.

McMurdo is unlike any place I have ever been. Despite being surrounded by beautiful scenery in every direction, the town itself is pretty ugly, and feels a lot like what I’d imagine a northern mining town to look like. The roads are gravelly and dirty, there are big vehicles driving all over the place, and the buildings are built for function over aesthetics. However, what the town lacks in looks, it makes up for in character. The people here are great, and everybody, from the cooks, to the drillers, to the fuelies, to the scientists, to the mountaineers, has a story to tell. The highlight so far has been meeting so many unique people and hearing their perspective on McMurdo and Antarctica. The scientists are affectionately referred to as “beakers” by everyone in town. 

David and I spent the first few days here settling into town, getting trained for various things, and running all over town getting cargo and other logistics ready for our trip to PIG. We were lucky to get in when we did, because we arrived just in time for Icestock: McMurdo’s epic New Year’s Eve Party. McMurdo currently has 880 people on station, and somehow there were 11 bands that performed at Icestock. One thing most people have here is plenty of time on their hands! I think that is one of the main appeals of McMurdo to the workers; the pace of life here is so much slower than at home, and people actually have time to have real conversations with one another. Icestock was an awesome party! At midnight, the sun was still high in the sky!

On New Year’s Day, I took a hike with some friends out to a place called Castle Rock, which is a nunatak about 4 miles north of McMurdo. As soon as you leave town, you are surrounded by an incredibly beautiful expanse of white ice and mountains in the distance. The hike was incredible and we had beautiful weather for it. The weather has been warm for our entire trip so far, with the temperature being close to zero Celsius most days. The highlight of the hike was climbing up to the top of Castle Rock, and having a 360 degree view that included Mount Erebus, an active volcano, Mount Terror, the Ross Ice Shelf, and the Royal Society mountain range. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend New Years day. After climbing down from castle rock, we did some impromptu tobogganing using trays from the cafeteria.

On January 2^nd my Grandpa Bushuk turned 84 (Happy Birthday Grandpa!), and I started the two day Happy Camper school. Happy Camper is a school which teaches you the basics of cold weather survival and camping in Antarctica. There was some classroom stuff at first, and then we drove out to the ice shelf and learned how to set up a camp on ice, and then spent the night there. We had the option of either sleeping in a tent or a snow trench, and I decided to go for the snow trench option. Basically you dig yourself a grave in the snow, and build a roof over it using blocks that you cut out using a snow saw. Below is my completed snow trench (I covered up the last bit of the roof once I was inside), and the view from inside. I never thought that I would be able to say that I spent a night IN the Ross Ice Shelf! I surprisingly got a great sleep!

 

The next day of Happy Camper we learned how to use radios, and did a bunch of situational analysis. One of the most fun situations was a test called the “Bucket-head” test, which is a simulation of a total white-out scenario. The scenario is this: your group is in a cabin and Bob has gone to the outhouse and not come back. Your task is to find Bob, but if you leave the cabin you need to put a white bucket over your head, to simulate zero visibility. The outhouse was only about 30m from the cabin, but it was essentially impossible to find it. Our group failed pretty spectacularly! Here is a photo of myself and Jeff looking rather confused while searching for Bob.

Here is the scenic view from the happy camper outhouse:

 

The next day, David and I did Snow School II, which was also a blast. Snow School II is all about how to travel safely on glaciers, and mostly focuses on how to rescue someone if they fall into a crevasse. We learned how to rope together properly, how to tie the right knots, and how to construct and anchor and a pulley system to pull somebody out of a crevasse. The system is pretty simple and we practiced pulling all of our team members out of the crevasse. We also learned how to self-ascend on a rope, which lets you climb up a rope if you are in a crevasse. Here are some other guys from our group self-ascending out of the crevasse.

  

On the way to the crevasse we came across a Kiwi at the side of the road who had lodged his snowmobile in a melt pool. We used our Haglund (the red vehicle) to help pull him out. There is a Kiwi base, called Scott Base, just down the road from McMurdo.

  

We were scheduled to fly out to PIG on Saturday morning, but our flight was cancelled. Now, our flight is scheduled for Monday at noon. On the bright side, I saw my first penguin this morning! We saw two Adelie penguins just outside of town and watched them goofing around for about an hour. They are pretty funny to watch. My friend took some nice shots, so I’ll post those once I get his pics.

Hopefully, my next update will be from the field! I will have only limited internet there, so I might not be able to post until I get back to McMurdo. Also, I won’t be using my regular email there, but USAP gave me a temporary one. You can email me (text only) emails at bushukmi@imcs4.usap.gov. Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!