A grand but bitter cold adventure

Saturday evening four brave souls departed at 7 for an igloo camping trip. It was snowing and blowing which brought even more adventure as we drove up to the igloo village at Castle Rock. Our plan was to cut into the larger igloo, empty it and see if the four of us could sleep comfortably. We decided it would only sleep two so we cut into another one that seemed okay for two more. The work of shoveling the snow out was hard but rewarding as I like this kind of effort. The wind was picking up and snowing harder so the four of us paired up and tried to make some kind of camping conditions inside. 

Ours seemed like a Motel 6 while theirs was a Holiday Inn! In fact we could not get all of our sweaty, snowy and wet clothing off because of the tight space and every time we moved we would hit the side or ceiling and ice would break off. So my igloo partner and I sat against the wall, passed a flask of scotch back and forth while we talked story. It was fun but very drafty inside. I had brought along a digital thermometer from work and measured a chilly -8 degF at 9:30. We then crawled into our -50 deg sleeping bags.  I couldn't stretch out so kind of leaned on the wall and laid with my feet at the door. 

After two hours of not sleeping we started talking how it wasn't getting any warmer inside like it should. At that point the temperature was -16 degF and we were both shivering. We figured that at the coldest time in the morning it would probably be less than -30 degF inside so it was time to bail before hypothermia set in. 


"Igloo 1 this is Igloo 2" we hailed on the radio. After three calls they answered as they were actually sleeping in their draft-less spacious igloo. Neither of us had slept at all. It took 45 minutes to get the Pisten Bully up to temperature and running. There was a full gale blowing at -50 degF with a wind chill probably around -70 degF. As we removed all the gear from the igloo it went flying and I took off running around the glacier picking it all up. It was brutal as you can see from the short 35 second video. My camera shut down after that. It was a long drive home through the very poor visibility and we didn't arrive until after 1am. On Sunday we emptied the Pisten  Bully and returned all the equipment to the Berg Field Center. Surprisingly we didn't lose anything!


The bottom line was that our igloo needed a lot of patch work that we didn't have time to do because of the deteriorating weather. Plus we should not have crawled into the sleeping bags wet. But there was no room to position ourselves to change. If there was just one of us there would have been room to change.


The entire time I was thinking of the old Antarctic explorers who did this day in and day out for weeks at a time. But we did camp for a few hours during mid-winter in an igloo. No one from McMurdo has ever camped during an Antarctic mid-winter and never in an igloo. So we were the first and last. The station manager was on this camping trip and he sent out an email this morning saying there will be no more attempts this winter as it is not the right time of year for this kind of activity. Plus after several months the igloos are collapsing. We had that fear inside so we had shovels to dig ourselves out in case of a collapse.

And one more thing - peeing in a pee bottle at -16 degF isn't fun!

Full of gear and only room for two of us.

The weather wasn't very good when we left...and it deteriorated rapidly.

The smile didn't last long as the bitter cold took over. But the adventure was excellent.

The two of us in the pax were packed in tight.

Cutting the door.

It took us 1 1/2 hours of backbreaking work to cut in and clean out two igloos as they were about 2/3 full of snow. A super fun way to spend Saturday night. I'm serious and really enjoyed the challenge.

We gave up a scotch tasting party for this!

Nice bunny suit.

My igloo partner James Bond.

There wasn't much room for me to stretch out in. We passed the time sharing a flask of scotch and trading camping, biking, and sailing stories. James Bond is the yacht club winter commodore.

To the center left is our door and opening - a very tight cold squeeze.

Back in the Pisten Bully headed for home.

Not much of a smile now...

from either of us.

Back in my room for a long hot shower, a beer then bed at 0230.

A full gale was blowing. It was -50 degF with a windchill of around -70. After 35 seconds the camera quit. The light is the Pisten Bully. I am shouting as loud as I can but the wind is masking my voice.

On Thursday evening I'm hosting a surfing film at the Coffee House Theater. I figure some sun and surf would be entertaining in our cold and dark home.