Sleep-out on the Antarctic mainland.

When asked if any of us would like to sleep-out on the mainland, 13 of us put our hand up. Being a veteran snow camper, who am I to refuse ? What – no tent ? This was a first for me. (well not quite I have slept in a snow cave around 1990ish) We are going to dig a ‘snow coffin’ without the lid and sleep in it. Generally I sleep in a tent in Australia because our snow being near zero is a bit wet during the day so a tent enables us to stay dry.

Firstly there is a landing party to give the passengers their first touch of mainland Antarctica. We are given a bit of history of the point by Gary Miller – a well accredited scientist of Antarctica. Then we had a walk up the hill to an elevated viewing area offering a good view of the bay and mountains . Along the way we are shown what a snow covered crevasse looks like – not too dissimilar to the track in the picture below sans footprints.

The views are superb, and the evening sky offered a wonderful sunset. The clouds formed a delightful work of art across the sky with a bright yellow streak of sunlight working its way along an elevated tear in its cover.

Walking is precarious on the snow; I remain befuddled as to why we are not issued snow shoes, talking to others when we got back to shore on a different trip they were all issued snow shoes – listen up Aurora ! I would say to anyone considering this trip that they take snow shoes in a day pack with them, some yowies or the inflatable ones would be good – just check that the bindings are adequate to fit gum boots. I had to work hard in some areas to extract myself out of deep holes up to my crotch.

As a side note, the bright orange cover is from a Tyvek disposable overall; as I wanted to cut down the baggage volume and weight due to a subsequent hike after this trip. It is working well keeping the water off on the Zodiac crossings and deep snow immersions.

The walkers left in the Zodiacs at around 9pm thinking that the 13 of us brave souls remaining were somewhat on the nuttier side of stupid.

Camping out involved digging a trench into the snow, an open coffin you might say. This proved very well in cutting out the wind. I was quite the envy with my Exped downmat and thin foam blanket groundsheet. The others had only two closed cell foam pads.

There were a few giggles from the girls digging a ‘play pen’, I am wondering if any sleep actually happened for them. For me it was actually quite warm, warmer than sleeping in a tent: I might have to keep this in mind on future camps, and I rather enjoyed being on solid ground without air conditioning and engine or door noises as your room mate wants to get up or enter for whatever reason.

These photos are taken at midnight or later, as there is almost 24 hours of light, I slept with my balaclava and some airline provided eye shades, and was able to get a full night of rest – better than the ship as there was no pitching and engine noise.