Camping on Ice

McMurdo Station has a fun survival trip training called Happy Camper. People go out on the ice shelf and build their own shelters by sawing into the ice and building up a wall of blocks to stop the wind. Then you sleep in the trench you just made from cutting out the ice blocks.

Using a light-weight serrated edged saw

It's pretty easy to cut blocks out since this particular ice layer was porous and light.

Dig the blocks out with the shovel

Start building a wall with the ice blocks

Team Kelly decided to ignore the survival manual and build an ice fort instead....complete with a wine cellar. We would not have survived in a real storm. And we didn't even have any wine with us. Haha, needless to say we lost the "competition."

The other team built their shelter perfectly. One large thick wall of ice blocks facing the wind with a trench behind the wall to sleep in.

We still like our fort better

 

Some mysterious Polar Monsters about to attack our shelters!

 

Time for some Shadow Puppet Theater!

 

Of course I somehow ended up on a team of no-talent ass-clowns.....the McMurdo cooks. A bunch of hilarious slackers/stoners whose only interest was trash-talking the other team and not listening to our guide's instructions. Good thing this survival trip was only "pretend," because we never would have made it against the elements.

The irony of this trip is that after many enthusiastic hours of building forts, walls, trenches, wine cellars, and drinking tons of hot chocolate, we saw an ominous storm coming and decided to head home. I was freezing. They were slackers. Our shelters have yet to be tested against the elements. Go Team Kelly!