Patriot Hills Camp Life JANUARY 2nd

PATRIOT HILLS

It was a pleasant surprise to arrive to so many unexpected comforts in what is supposed to be a baron continent.
The camp consists of various types of tents ranging from small mountaineering tents for the parties climbing Mount Vinson, to Clam tents for Last Degree expeditions and up to a large long half tube tent being the kitchen and dining area.
Kitchen: Water is made fron ice which is dug out with spades from outside, boiled in pots and from it the food.(food is plentiful and excellent.)

Dining Tent

On arrival we were shown to the Dining tent and briefed about several modus operandi on the base which included a polite description on the use of the toilets. (IE. No running water. Hum!).
The dining tent is the hub of all activities and socialising, including the New Years festivities, which naturally had to be repeated at each persons respective home time, justifying the necessity to drink Russian Vodka, then French Champaigne, then Chilean wine etc all leading to impassioned New Years resolutions and great hangovers, both of which were probably equally regretted in the morning.

Myself and Paul (also doing the Last Degree) are in a Clam tent together. It is amazingly warm, spacious and has two great beds. They say life is tough on the Antartic. For now not but later maybe. Time will tell.

Clam Tent

Some of the comforts Antarctic adventurers trying to portray tough images, might refrain from admitting to.

The two smaller Twin Otter aircraft park fairly close to the tented area.

Several other tents serve to store equipment, skidos, mechanical workshop, toilets and weather/management co-ordinating office which looks like it could have been a 6m refrigeration container in its early days. The weather forecasts proved to be accurate and reliable. (Arbitrary observation you may think, but strap a microlight to ones pants and it becomes critical information).

The toilets are where all forms of comforts cease.

No Running water! No flushing, no washing ......

Water is a scarce comodity on the driest continent in the world so the last place it is spent is on ablutions.

For environmental reasons everything gets bagged or canned and taken off the ice. “How”, You may ask?

Toilets

The WC on the left is for Number 2’s (Boys and Girls) deposited into a plastic bag suspended below.

WC in the middle is for only girls to wee in and tip the contents from the red bucket below into the metal urinal/funnel on the right.

The metal urinal is for the boys. (not favoured by short men).

Sanitising gel is the only form of hand washing which is also practicle as water would just freeze to your hands. For the same reason brushing teeth is a mission. Its like rubbing a toothpaste flavoured block of ice against you teeth.

It is desperately cold but perhaps because the air is dry it does not feel too bad.

Dont let me mislead you into thinking it is all easy. Life here on the ice can be a huge mission. Planning ahead and being prepared for the worst is essential. Without the fuel and gas for the stoves, life would be serious Scot like survival.

Ciao for now