Happy Camper, trip w/ photogs, seals close, SAR trng

Hello-hello Family and Friends, old and new, all far away (as opposed to my traditional "near and far"),

Unfortunately for you time is short enough here that I'm going to write more, uh, freely. It's too daunting to try to write well when time is limited (as we're close to the pole here, the days (24-hour period) are shorter, just like latitude lines are shorter and the longitude lines closer together: makes hours shorter).*

It's Saturday night, our one weekend night, and I just came off of "Happy Camper" school, officially "Snowcraft I" and also called Survival School. No one takes it twice as you'd have to not survive to not pass (not really, and every 5 years people have to take it again, I think).

It's an overnight course where the poor studentia camp out while the lazy instructors (that's us) stay in a hut and sleep on mattresses.

My favorite part of Happy Camper is what I call the Buckethead Scenario on Day 2. The idea is for them to find someone "lost" while headed to the outhouse in a whiteout. We have specially made, highly technical White-Out Simulators that go over their heads. The Simulators provide a grand view of whiteness, they muffle one's voice, and they make the other muffled voices even more muffled to your muffled ears. Exactly like weathering a serious storm in serious layers here on Planet Ice, rumor has it.

In other realms, the simulators would be called Square Pickle Buckets and in this realm, they have silly expressions drawn upon them with black markers. So the group gets a rope and a stack of buckets (choose your expression) and off they go. What I have learned from watching group after group flail at this exercise is that if you lose physical contact with the person next to you, there is no communication. With no communication there is no leadership, and of course in the absence of leadership, there is no execution of any sort of plan (assuming the plan was well thought out in the first place). So very Outward Bound: I love it. Once an Outward Bound Instructor, Always an Outward Bound Instructor, at least in my case. Funny that I still think of myself as an outdoor educator though I really have not worked in outdoor ed for years.

Anyway, the real lesson here is more basic: prevention. Put up the flags (every few feet along routes around camp, or better yet a rope if you really expect all heck to break loose) and tell someone where and when you'll be back. Or use a pee bottle.

I took some photos of the Buckethead Scenario to finish off a roll of film so that I can send off my slides from the trip with the photographers. Those who know me will be amazed to hear that I shot SIX (6) rolls of film during 11 days with Larry and Ann (and another FSTP instructor). Six rolls is about what I usually shoot in two years, and as many as I took down to the ice in the first place.

It was a wonderful trip. Mostly. Learning how to start a old and cold snowmachine was an experience. I cannot say I find figuring out machinery intuitive. I wrote up a whole sequence about what it took to start it one particular morning early on, but I shall spare you. I did eventually make peace with my Alp II, and even later appreciated it over the Alp I's the others had. Those machines are about my age and provided the opportunity to learn things like how to change spark plugs (I actually did that and am pleased to report that it was not nearly as mysterious and technical as it sounds) and "bogies". I also learned to tolerate dealing with nasty fuel every day. Once I dedicated a pair of (USAP) gloves to fueling, it wasn't as bad.

Enough on that.

It seems I have a thing for ice. Especially smooth deep-blue ice. I continue to be mesmerized by the blue ice that occasionally forms in sea-ice cracks and is often exposed at pressure ridges. It is amazingly beautiful and cracks in wonderful ways. Much of it has, if you look carefully, crystals stuck to the surface, and when you taste them you remember that this is not glacial ice. Salt, and it varies in flavor. I will admit that I did indeed have a regretful interaction with a particularly dry and cold icicle, but it wasn't as bad as metal.

Ann and Larry are out to photograph much of the landscape explored during the early part of last century (the names we hear and speak of frequently here: Scott especially) as well as cool things in general of which there are many. This meant that once the required shots were done, we'd cruise along the coast (on sea ice) and stop at every interesting chunk of ice. Or seal. Or fuzzy baby seal. Or fuzzy squirmy just-born baby seal with big eyes and rubbery oversized flippers and a voice like a wailing sheep.

Big icebergs sit frozen in the sea ice, some still flat like when the came off the glacier, and some that have flipped and are so convoluted it was difficult to know what aspect one was looking at. We explored a fascinating cave, a big cave, on one of the latter. It was awesome, the colors, shapes, stalagtites and stalagmites, bending icicles, the interior much bigger than the opening, the dark little crack passages beckoning me but requiring a headlamp, crampons and time (none of which I had). I was most taken by the crystals, a version of hoar frost, on the inside in some places. Facets up to 2" deep and some particular faceted crystals measured about 3cm. They make a wonderful tinkling sound when they hit the floor.

The coolest of the cool is the contact between the tip of a glacier and sea ice. Land and sea, fresh and saline, old and new, pressing together head to head, a big jumbled mess, all the colors of ice in one locale. Incredible rolls of blue ice, cracked like squarish jigsaw puzzle pieces filled exactly to the edge with snow, and somehow frozen into big thick layers, at least that's how they bend up (often vertically) or even curve over like a wave. There was even a cave, big enough for 3 dome tents, between the layers. The roof of this cave appeared less stable than the berg cave so I only stayed in for a few minutes after climbing up through the little opening.

More fascinating crystals. Right behind it the toe of the glacier, dirty and whiter than the sea ice, pushed against the sea ice (multi-year ice, probably 3 years due to B-15: the enormous berg you heard about that came off the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000. As big as CT, so they say, but very recently broken, which might lead to it's moving and no longer blocking currents and other variables that affect sea ice).

Maybe some of my shots will come out. You'd hope: six rolls in the company of professionals. Of course Ann and Larry were into the light which meant that we had an irregular non-schedule based on when the light would hit specific terrain features. One day we might go to bed at 2am, get up at noon, then be up for 24 hours, then sleep 15, then be up for 7, bed for 3, up for 20, sleep another ridiculously long night (somehow, we could all actually sleep that long, or mostly). Some and Larry and Ann's time involved a generator, laptops, solar panels, and downloading photos.

Checked out the remains of a stone shelter built by Scott's 1909(?) 3 man geology sub-expedition to Granite Harbor the wonderful area in which we spent 6 nights. Parts of the seal skin roof remain hanging on the edge of a rock wall, complete with soot and string. At dinner (in our tall yellow four sided burly pyramidal Scott tent), Larry would read from the journals of the leader of that expedition, way cool. They "man-hauled" (ie no dogs) their gear on huge heavy sledges, ate a lot of hoosh, and saw many of the sights we did. But they worked one hell of a lot harder than we ever did for the honor of being in such an incredible place.

How about Fata Morgana (Fates of Morgana, Arther's sister, trained by Merlin to create castles out of swamps, luring men to their deaths). It's an optical illusion created when it's cold and calm. Refraction of light makes features in the distance pop up in height. One morning I might get up and notice a fleet of tall bergs, frozen into the sea ice, four or five in the distance. Twenty minutes later only one flat berg remains in sight. We watched Beaufort Island extend upward, squeeze off like an hourglass, then evaporate into the sky. Two brown towers appeared on day and we couldn't quite tell what the actual source was. Fun to watch. I think I have decent photos of this phenomenon.

Larry and Ann are out for 4 months, with FSTP instructors swapping in and out. I'm hoping to get back out with them in the dry valleys (less technical than roping up snowmobiles (and selves) for glaciers, but quite a bit more unique).

Back to work. Thursdays are SAR training days (Search And Rescue). We train with our Kiwi friends, the folks we worked with ages ago in NZ, and soon on alternating Thursdays we'll train the secondary SAR team (selected volunteers from the community as well as the Physician's Asst, who also teaches wilderness medicine).

The other day we had our first scenario. It involved 3 patients in a complex crevasse, one wedged, another of course jammed in somewhere else and trying to die and a fourth person, hysterical, on the surface. The hasty team (first of the rescuers, fast and light team) was to be deployed via helicopter, but then they couldn't land due to weather so we were off to a realistic start. As you can guess this was a busy scene, and a great learning experience. Looking forward to more such scenarios.

This one also involved the big whigs in town meeting in the Emergency Operations Center, where they gather data from us on site (patient conditions), weather, aircraft availability, etc etc and make plans to get the patients off to Christchurch in NZ. It's actually a really big deal because of all the support (like food) that the rescuers and endless support personnel would need. If something big happens for real, much of the town is mobilized, or at least put on hold while all necessary resources go to the situation.

Last year a helo went down in the Dry Valleys. No one died largely because the Antarctic equivalent of having a heart attack next to a convention of cardiac physicians occurred, but I'm sure you can imagine that it was a big freakin' deal.

The last SAR training involved more technology, including Radio Direction Finding, intro radar in the Hagglund, and our own version of the Buckethead Scenario: the windows of the Hagglund cardboarded up and we find the lost person via GPS. It works best when you don't run over the person so someone pops out the hatch to ensure a live recovery. Fun.

It's been getting quite a bit warmer recently, into the 20's and with some blue skies here in McMurdo. The snow around town is sublimating quickly (but still quite a bit left) revealing volcanic dirt roads to accentuate the mining town feel. With the more stable weather, more planes have been flying. Our dependence on fossil fuels and faraway places is much more obvious here than normal life (in which we are ALMOST as dependent). Planes mean mail and freshies: we actually had salad last night, first time in weeks. Wonderful how good lettuce (with arugula even!) can taste. I do miss the leafy greens and am certain that the next plane will land packed to the brim with organic spinach and kale.

Months ago an old friend told me to say hello to his friend Thomas down here. Recently a gal here recognized my last name: she was a high school friend of my sister! She then mentioned that there's a guy here from my class: Thomas. So I met with him the other night, which was fun. We didn't know each other then, but I enjoyed hearing about the glaciology project he's working on and what little we could remember of high school. Says he'll get his housemate to send down the yearbook. That and a beer will provide quite the entertainment for an evening.

Two days later. I was invited to spend part of my day off out with the seal people. I watched them tag Weddell seals as part of their 30 year old population study (Weddells are doing fine). They use a leather punch to put a hole in the flippers between the toes for the tags. I tried to convince myself that it was like getting your ears pierced. To catch the seal (a large animal, by the way), we just walked up, and they "sat up" to see what was up, big eyes bugging out. Then the Biological Sciences Technician (pro seal wrestler) said nice things to the seal and threw a specially designed bag over the seal's head. The vinyl bag has long rope handles for the cowboy and grommets as airholes for the seal.

The Teacher Experiencing Antartica did the hole punching and tag installation, which was not necessarily an easy task, partly because the poor critter sometimes pee'd and pooped all over the place. Can you blame them? But when it was over they'd just move a few meters away and give us nasty looks.

Harrassing wildlife is a big deal with the Antarctic Treaty. Harrassment is when the animal reacts to your presence. Each person on the research team have to be on the permit to do this, meaning that I could not legally bag or tag.

That was ok with me. Hooking a cable to the underside of a large helicopter as it hovered overhead (for the sling loads as Larry and Ann moved to the next section of their trip) was one thing, but I just wasn't interested in torturing seals. The irony, however, glares. Me who so enjoys learning about natural history, details about wild things, their behavior, their lives... such data is not gathered from a distance with binoculars. This is also related to my feelings of becoming a wildlife biologist myself. The Technician commented that these seals are sacrificing themselves for the good of their species. And these folks are compassionate and caring toward their subjects or they wouldn't be out there in the first place.

I did feel their fish smelling coats, including one of a dead baby (of which there are a number lying around partly drifted over. One appeared to have a tumor). Pups have the same absolute number of hairs as they will as adults, so on a pup the fur is much denser. One Masters student is developing a method of photographing the seals (from a camera held over the seal on a long complex and silly looking boom attached to the photographers waist) that will essentially weigh them while they sleep (which is mostly what they do on the ice, unless they have a pup). He is finding that his estimates are very close to the actual weight of the animal, so once this is fully developed, the seals will be less harrassed as the researchers get their weights.

This was the first stationary (ie stationary) field camp I've seen. The buildings are boxes on skids, towed out by who knows what. They have Preway heaters which burn diesel fuel from drums hooked up outside. The outhouse is similarly a box on skids, but with only a partial floor (sea ice). There is of course a way to run a computer (and phone) and the other instruments used in the research. About six people at this site, two bunk building, a lab, and a cooking/living box. A nice little set-up. They have snowmobiles and a Piston Bully.

My hair is getting rather wild. There is one hair cutter here and apparently she is good so very busy. I needed to get it cut before I left, but waited knowing it wouldn't cost me anything here (other than a generous tip, of course). Also very hard to find the time to get it done. That type of thing is ok to do during work hours (which is only when she works); part of being a company town.

The local weekly paper, the Antarctic Sun has started running. The website is www.polar.org/antsun if you're interested in more of what goes on around here.

Love and snow that actually falls out of the sky (here is just blows around and around), Susan

*that was complete bs