Halfway to the South Pole

| No Comments
The 2009 Amundsen Omega 3 South Pole Race is underway. It started January 1st. Here is the race website: Amundsen Omega 3 South Pole Race Here is the page on what it is like:
WHAT IT'S LIKE
What�s it like to live as a competitor on the South Pole Race?

Imagine that all of the comforts you have in your everyday life, like hot water, a warm bed, electricity, a convenience store around the corner, are taken away from you... Instead you are living in the driest, windiest, coldest place on earth, with no creature comforts.

All of the food that you need, you have to pull behind you in a pulk. All of the fuel you need to heat that food, you have to drag behind you. It�s so cold, that everything freezes, including you - if you do not use the equipment to stay warm, your only shelter is the tent you are carrying... your daily routine becomes very different to the life you have at home!

An example day (all in freezing temperatures!)
Wake up in the tent
Brave getting out of sleeping bags into the icy cold of the tent, get dressed, pack away, get out all the things you have been keeping warm in your sleeping bag, such as batteries, store them on your body to keep them warm.
Scrape ice from tent inner � this has been created by your breath freezing on the tent inner during the night while you have been sleeping.
Put the stoves on (make sure you are wearing gloves, you don�t want to touch any metal which is extra cold � it will stick to you!).
Melt snow for hot water.
Breakfast: Porridge, muesli/energy crunch, raisins, milk powder, sugar
Lots of tea/coffee/ hot chocolate!
Fill all flasks and water bottles with hot water to last the day (e.g. 2 � 3 litres each)
Turn the Stoves off. Refuel stoves � be very careful not to spill any fuel on yourself as when the wind hits the fuel on you it will freeze rapidly, risking frostbite.
Daily wash routine. Make sure you put on lots of sun lotion and lip block, sunglasses! (The UV rays are so strong that you will burn to a cinder if you do not put on sun block, even though it is freezing. You must wear sunglasses to prevent snow blindness from the strong UV rays reflecting off the white surface)
Then the real joy of the morning, put your feet into icy cold boots.
Pack up tent and all equipment, pack pulks. Prepare navigation. Skis on.
Pray for a good visibility today.
And I grouse about the cold weather here!

Leave a comment

October 2022

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
            1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31          

Environment and Climate
AccuWeather
Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Climate Depot
Ice Age Now
ICECAP
Jennifer Marohasy
Solar Cycle 24
Space Weather
Watts Up With That?


Science and Medicine
Junk Science
Life in the Fast Lane
Luboš Motl
Medgadget
Next Big Future
PhysOrg.com


Geek Stuff
Ars Technica
Boing Boing
Don Lancaster's Guru's Lair
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
FAIL Blog
Hack a Day
Kevin Kelly - Cool Tools
Neatorama
Slashdot: News for nerds
The Register
The Daily WTF


Comics
Achewood
The Argyle Sweater
Chip Bok
Broadside Cartoons
Day by Day
Dilbert
Medium Large
Michael Ramirez
Prickly City
Tundra
User Friendly
Vexarr
What The Duck
Wondermark
xkcd


NO WAI! WTF?¿?¿
Awkward Family Photos
Cake Wrecks
Not Always Right
Sober in a Nightclub
You Drive What?


Business and Economics
The Austrian Economists
Carpe Diem
Coyote Blog


Photography and Art
Digital Photography Review
DIYPhotography
James Gurney
Joe McNally's Blog
PetaPixel
photo.net
Shorpy
Strobist
The Online Photographer


Blogrolling
A Western Heart
AMCGLTD.COM
American Digest
The AnarchAngel
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Babalu Blog
Belmont Club
Bayou Renaissance Man
Classical Values
Cobb
Cold Fury
David Limbaugh
Defense Technology
Doug Ross @ Journal
Grouchy Old Cripple
Instapundit
iowahawk
Irons in the Fire
James Lileks
Lowering the Bar
Maggie's Farm
Marginal Revolution
Michael J. Totten
Mostly Cajun
Neanderpundit
neo-neocon
Power Line
ProfessorBainbridge.com
Questions and Observations
Rachel Lucas
Roger L. Simon
Samizdata.net
Sense of Events
Sound Politics
The Strata-Sphere
The Smallest Minority
The Volokh Conspiracy
Tim Blair
Velociworld
Weasel Zippers
WILLisms.com
Wizbang


Gone but not Forgotten...
A Coyote at the Dog Show
Bad Eagle
Steven DenBeste
democrats give conservatives indigestion
Allah
BigPictureSmallOffice
Cox and Forkum
The Diplomad
Priorities & Frivolities
Gut Rumbles
Mean Mr. Mustard 2.0
MegaPundit
Masamune
Neptunus Lex
Other Side of Kim
Publicola
Ramblings' Journal
Sgt. Stryker
shining full plate and a good broadsword
A Physicist's Perspective
The Daily Demarche
Wayne's Online Newsletter

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by DaveH published on January 4, 2009 7:00 PM.

Single Payer Medical Care in Canada was the previous entry in this blog.

A nice reply regarding the climate is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Monthly Archives

Pages

OpenID accepted here Learn more about OpenID
Powered by Movable Type 5.2.9