Getting ready
McMurdo Station, the main US research and operations base in Antarctica, is an interesting place. There are about 1200 people who are employed there in the summer, mainly to support the 50+ science teams that move through. Few of those teams go into the deep field like us, so we were the lucky ones. We spent a few days in McMurdo getting our gear together, and we even got to spend Thanksgiving there (a wonderful meal!) and doing some nearby hikes in nice weather. We did a "shakedown", or two-day check of our equipment at a field site near McMurdo. We also got a bonus two-day crevasse rescue and cold weather field safety course by our mountaineers, John Schutt and Shaun Norman. What a treat to gain from some of their expertise! We also got a tour of the Kiwi Scott Base by Shaun, who spent many field seasons there. Here are a couple of videos of him talking about his time there, VIDEO FIRST and VIDEO SECOND.
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