We attended our first course in "Sea Ice Training". Recognizing dangers in the
ice, such as cracks and crevasses, are key to surviving often hidden dangers in
Antarctica. Steve Sweet, Dr. Andrew Klein and I hopped aboard a Haglund, a double
cabbed, track vehicle that can float using a bilge pump if it submerges in water,
with six other people and traveled off McMurdo Proper.
Once we reached the transition zone, the terrestrial to ice area, we stopped to
examine tidal cracks with our instructor Thai. We learned that even if a crack
is not large enough for a human to fall completely through, it can still lead
to severe injuries to the ankle or knee that can incapacitate a person leaving
them trapped on the ice if traveling alone. After locating the tension zone between
land and ice, we students found tidal cracks and brushed the snow away from their
surfaces. After examining these cracks Thai called MacOpps, the communications
hub for McMurdo, and they noted all the necessary contact information for travelling
on the ice shelf.
The next stop was at the instructors hut where we learned three very important
lessons: 1) The types of cracks that exist (Tidal, straight, working, proximity,
and pressure ridges), how to locate them, if and how to travel across them, how
to measure crack depth and width, and how to locate cracks. 2) How to recognize
and treat hypothermia, frostbite, and snowblindness. 3) How to use the emergency
safety kits, putting up tents in the strong winds characteristic of Antarctica,
using the small stove, and ice berm construction.
After these lessons we took a break for a "flight lunch". I must admit that the
sandwiches were not as appetizing as I hoped with stale bread, thick peanut butter
and very little jelly. I couldn't eat the processed meat (it was far to scary
looking). However, the juice, granola bar, cheese and crackers, and the M&Ms made
up for the sandwiches. After lunch we piled back into the Haglund and waited to
see what our next stop held in store for us. It was an iceberg!
We stopped at an iceberg, trapped in the ice. Thai allowed us to crawl all around
it, sliding down its peak to the bottom ice, or just investigating the various
nooks and crannies filled with that deep glacier blue-a soothing color and, I
think, one of the loveliest that exist in the world.
Once more we piled back into the Haglund, and stopped at the "Rancho Penguino"
or the Penguin Ranch, a small area dedicated to studying Emperor Penguins. Behind
three small structures there were three small enclosures, or corals if you prefer.
We watched with delight as the penguins jumped out of the ice hole and waddled
around as if for our amusement. One little guy, all of three feet tall, had an
underwater camera harnessed to his back as part of the ranch's study program.
Afterwards, I climbed down the cramped observation tube in all my ECW gear. I
had to wait for Steve. He started down the tube, hesitated, and then came right
back up. Score one for clausterphobia! I shimmied down the tube and crouched down
in a space about 5' tall and 4'in diameter. There were 4 small plastic plate windows.
The observation room was about 2 meters below the ice with was approximately 4
meters in depth. It was incrediably beautiful with the long ice crystal lattices
hanging below the ice. It was dark, with the only available light streaming from
the penguin ranch's ice holes and from a large crack that could be seen some distance
away. The dark blue water was alive and brimming with various zooplankton moving
in the water column with the currents like rain falls against a speeding car's
window.
Soon after leaving the observation room, we once again piled into the Haglund.
Our next stop was at a pressure ridge that extended from the Erebus Ice Tongue
and stretched to the distant Mt. Discovery. We shoveled the snow away from a 10
foot stretch revealing the ice surface beneath. Using a Kovak's hand auger, without
the motorhead and just the hand crank Groan, we drilled every 2 feet or so. Steve,
using a specially engineered measuring tape, noted the depths at each point location.
We determined that travel over the ridge was safe for the week (convenient since
we had already crossed it!). That was the end to our great adventure. D.Gielstra
