antarctica

by Natalie

My Traverse to the South Pole

Let’s just call this a long road trip. Though the length isn’t what makes it so interesting but rather the location (The South Pole!), mode of travel, and reasons behind the trip.

How: Tractor traverse

Where: Across multiple Ice Shelves, up the Trans-Antarctic and onto the Polar Plateau, eventually reaching the Geographic South Pole.

Why: Delivery of fuel and other essential supplies for science projects at the South Pole.

My job: Field Safety Coordinator for the US Antarctic Program

What made this stint of contract work so interesting is the unique mix of skills needed. My work was a mix of traditional mountaineering, tractor rigging, white-out navigation, field medic, tractor operator, and science tech.

I actually spent the first part of my season training the team in crevasse rescue. Then I went on a special trip to prepare one section of the route, before actually starting this traverse.

Sounds like a lot?? It was! It’s hard to share the scale of this journey but below are some great insights.

Mt Beazley- one of the most stunning sites along the way. I wish we could have stayed here for days.

The Route

in Trip Reports

by Natalie

Treating Hypothermia

I’m just snuggled up by my fireplace on a cold rainy day which is inspiring me to talk about the cold, specifically hypothermia.

Problems with the cold have been on my mind a lot lately. I did just return from working in Antarctica where it was quite cold. Since being back in California, it has been raining and snowing, a lot. We are being hit by the “atmospheric river,” and while these are relatively warm storms, it is still colder and damper than most people are used to – especially in sunny California. On top of that, I recently attended a lecture by the renowned cold physiology scientist, Dr. Giesbrecht aka Dr. Popsicle, on hypothermia and crevasse rescue[i].

All of this led me to write this article. Let’s talk about what’s going on physiologically when we get cold, discuss the decision process needed to determine when it is causing a problem, and the actions to take to prevent it from becoming something significant (AKA hypothermia).

So, first things first, cold will always be a problem when we are losing heat faster than we can replace it.

in Wilderness Medicine

by Natalie

Antarctica Sea Ice McMurdo Sound

Before too much time passes, I want to wrap up sharing about my 2020 Sea Ice work in Antarctica. In my last post about Antarctica, I introduced the idea of the sea ice and outlined a few highlights of early season sea ice work. In this post I’d like to talk more about late season sea ice work and some of the science that takes place on the sea ice.

in Mountain Technique

by Natalie

Or, as it’s referred to amongst my community of co-workers ‘the ice’. We classify our lives according to what we do ‘on ice’ versus or ‘off-ice’ time. Our ‘ice friends’ vs our regular friends. This isn’t out of feeling special but rather the difficulty of trying to explain to any rational person what we do ‘down there’ and why we keep going back.

in Mountain Technique