winter camp

weather face, originally uploaded by noxious nick.

We went for a hike the other day. Or rather, we tried to. We got about halfway up the hill and realized we were spending more energy just to stay on the ground than we were climbing up the slope and decided to turn back around. The wind was that strong. All that white you see around my "face"? That stuff is pretty much frozen solid. I had to break it to get it off my head.

Typically, when hiking away from the general confines of the station, one is required to check out with the firehouse and take a radio (to stay in contact or call for help in an emergency). The firehouse will judge based on weather reports and general conditions whether it's safe to make the hike. There's a whole bunch of other new stuff now too that entails going on line and filing an "eFootPlan," but I won't describe that because it's a ludicrous and redundant waste of time and money and was only implemented because someone around here has a hard-on for things that start with a lower case 'e'. Anyway, the point is, we did all that stuff and I have to say I was surprised the firehouse let us go.

Just so you know, this is currently my official badass antarctica picture. There may be more forthcoming. I'm hoping to get one of those ones where my eyelashes are all iced up from my breath steaming and freezing. And yeah, it was sort of dark when we went.