The basic unit of field camping packing was the rock box. Just about anything that would fit could be found in rock boxes. They were sturdy plywood boxes with a rope handle on each end. The lids were usually held on with two screws. They were used for food, batteries, explosives, tools, birthday presents, and as furniture. Why "rock box"? They were also used as shipping containers for geological samples --- rocks -- which we didn't see any of on our trip. All of the rocks in the area where we were working were under about two kilometers of ice.
100% of the paper, plastic, electrical wire, wood, used tea bags and anything else we didn't want was bagged and dragged along with us, or left for the Twin Otters to pick up and carry back to a camp like Onset-D. All of the trash on the continent is recycled and/or hauled off of the continent from McMurdo by ship at the end of the season.
We had regular AC power from a small Honda generator. But what could we possibly have needed electricity for out in the untamed, pristine, wilderness of Western Antarctica??...
...a few dozen rechargeable batteries ranging in size from AA's to 100Ah gel cells for everything from handheld GPS units to RADAR units to seismic recording systems, two or three Iridium satellite phones, eight or ten VHF radios, CD writers, PDAs, computer video monitors, video cameras, digital cameras, electric razors, soldering irons, shot boxes, and I don't know how many laptop computers. Apparently you need more than a field notebook and a pencil to do science these days. The one thing we didn't have (other than small flashlights) were any electric lights. The sun is up 24 hours a day during the Austral Summer, so we never needed them.
The pointy tent on the left was your standard outhouse setup. There was usually a can with plastic bags inside and a regular toilet seat on top made out of a blue insulating foam material that did an EXCELLENT job -- even at sub-sub-freezing temperatures. If you live where it gets cold I think you know what I'm talking about. If we were going to be somewhere for a while then a hole was drilled down several meters into the snow with our hot water drill and the toilet seat was placed on the snow over the hole. The black flag was our signaling system. If the flag was up then the coast was clear. If it was down then the tent was occupied...or someone forgot to put the flag back up, for which they were duly chastised.
Since we had a hot water drill we were able to make all the hot water needed to fill your basic horse trough full of water and take a bath when the schedule allowed. We only ended up doing this a couple of times during the month that we were on the road and away from Onset-D camp. The same drill was also used a couple of times for showers at Onset-D for us and the camp staff.
A (bath) tub full of nice, hot water in the middle of Antarctica. What would Scott have thought??
The view from the tub was usually pretty nice.
Getting out of the tub was VERY exciting. Woohoo!! Above I'm good to go for another few weeks. I'm not really smiling. My upper lip was just frozen to my teeth.
2018-03-05