Snow Craft 1

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at a training called 'Snow Craft 1'. The two-day training was about what one should do if one was to get stranded somewhere away from campus. There were 15 students in my class. We mostly listened to a lot of lectures and then set-up camp and spent Tuesday night out on the permanent sea ice. We set-up tents, built walls out of snowblocks to protect us from the wind, dug a kitchen area that allowed us to cook out of the wind and such things. Some folks dug trenches to sleep in, but I just found a spot in a tent for myself. The weather ended up being super nice, which made me happy. The sun shined all night with almost no wind. The low for the night was 14F. I had a little trouble falling asleep due to the 24-hour daylight.

Wednesday morning we packed up camp, listened to more lectures, watched a couple of training videos, and were finished. I made it to my room by early afternoon and was happy to get a quick nap in before meeting Alex after work.

I didn't take my camera to the training (couldn't find it), but was able to get a few pics from other folks. This first picture is of the camp, it's early in the day, before the wall to protect us from the wind had been built. The teepee looking tents are way old-school, it's the same tent design they were using on the first expeditions to Antarctica. They are still quite popular here.



I spent most of my time hanging out in the kitchen, though I didn't make this next picture. We dug the hole and built the wall for wind protection and so we could cook standing up.



I will see if I can get some more pics.