Erebus - (ěr'ə-bəs) n. Greek Mythology. The dark region of the underworld through which the dead must pass before they reach Hades.

10-11-09

I wake up with a rim of ice coating my cocoon of a sleeping bag. Warm inside I try not to move and just lie still, staring at the blue green ceiling of snow. There appears to be some kind of icy hair hanging from the domed walls of the snow cave, and I soon discover that they are elaborate yet delicate ice crystals that must have formed from our breath during the night. Some are at least three inches long and as thin as silk. I wonder how they formed. Eerily quiet and warm, the confines of our cave lull me into a false sense of apathy. I scramble to get on my boots and worm out through the entrance, only to enter a white hell. A driving southern wind turns my unprotected hands into useless clubs within seconds. I stumble over to the “pee block” and spend an inordinate amount of time trying to pee before I scramble back to the comforts of the cave reeling in pain.

It is 7:40 AM on the second morning of “Happy Camper” school, and I (along with 20 others) have spent the night out on the Ross Ice-shelf as part of a field training course. Yesterday we set up the tents used by Scott, Shackelton, and countless other polar explorers for the past 120 years. A simple double walled pyramidal tent, they remain essentially identical to the very tent that Scott and his men perished in not far from this very spot. Some will choose to sleep in these, others in the classic mountaineering tents used by modern explorers. Still others will choose to build shelters into the shelf. We learn how to build snow walls out of styrofoam snow; so cold and compacted it squeaks as the saw works to cut it into seemingly indestructible blocks. In an hour or two we have a small tent town set up, protected from the prevailing katabatic winds by a snow block wall. Soon people are melting snow and cooking in an outdoor kitchen complete with a counter, and haul-sled windbreak.

My group has decided that we will sleep in a quinsy, or snow cave. Earlier in the day we piled snow onto a mound of packs, and now, three hours later we burrow into the side of this snowbank and begin to pull out pack after pack. Soon we have a hollow shell of snow large enough to comfortably sleep the three of us. We patch the pack hole with a cut snow block and dig a five-foot deep hole before tunneling in from the downwind side. After finishing the subterranean entrance tunnel I decide to cut a proper flight of steps from the surface down to what would now be our front door, anything to keep from being inactive in this sub-zero weather for too long. By the time people are turning into bed, our little snow cave has a perfectly flat floor, shelves, and a snow-block Inukshuk standing guard over the entranceway. I pull out my Frisbee and play for an hour or so before heading to bed.

I let my camera freeze up a bit too soon so I didnt use it at all during happy camper. All of these pictures are from Jess, the girl in the right hand side of the frame in the bottom picture. From now on I am keeping my camera inside of my coat.