Welcome to Sky-Blu field camp

But first, let’s catch up with Dan (Halley’s Station Leader) and his epic journey to reach our station on skis. And don’t miss his photos and videos from the trip so far… including some VERY cute emperor penguin chicks and a musical send off!

Welcome to Sky Blu

Sky-Blu is one of our logistics hubs on the Antarctic continent. It’s a vital stop to get scientists out into the depths of Antarctica, to study things like the ice sheet and climate.

It’s about 800km south of Rothera, near the Sky-Hi Nunataks. Nunataks are peaks of mountains, poking above the surface of snow or ice.

The camp was officially opened last week after the winter season. Some of our intrepid team made the almost four-hour flight from Rothera and they have been busy uncovering everything after the winter and pitching tents ready for the science season to begin in earnest.  

Life at Sky-Blu is pretty basic – it’s basically a polar campsite. There’s a bright red melon hut (an insulated bubble-like building where the team eat, plan activities and chat) and pyramid tents for people to sleep in. 

Sky-Blu is an important place for our Twin Otter aircraft to stop and refuel, and for the pilots to have a well-earned break. This means time at Sky Blu can be pretty quiet, interspersed with bursts of activity when planes come in and regular weather observations that are used to brief the pilots flying in from other places.

A lot of time is spent clearing the blue ice runway! This runway is even big enough for our Dash 7 to land there to drop off people and cargo.  

From Sky-Blu, field teams will be taken onwards into the field to do their science projects.  

Extreme camping 

Camping in Antarctica isn’t just camping – it’s extreme camping. With temperatures of around -20ºC, polar campers need to be very prepared. 

A team is currently busy setting up a field camp in Palmer Land, a flight away from Sky-Blu. They’re getting ready for researchers and engineers to spend the next four months drilling ice cores as part of a project called REWIND. We’ll find out more about what they’re up to next week.

Pilot Vicky dropped more of the team off, and she sent us this video of them setting up camp and making a well deserved cup of tea!

So what on earth do you pack for a camping trip in Antarctica? 

What people wear in the Antarctic has changed a lot since the first explorers visited the frozen continent. We know a lot more about how our bodies work in the cold, and the properties of different materials. Our researchers need to feel warm – but look cool!

Food – glorious food  

There are no chefs in the deep field so the Field Guide tends to do most of the cooking – although everyone mucks in.

Most food is dehydrated, so as long as you can boil water, you can make some pretty tasty meals! Think things like chilli, vegetable curry and mac’n’cheese. The food has lots of calories in to sustain everyone working hard in the field.

The boiling water comes from melting snow. But… it’s not as simple as you might think. There’s a real knack to it, and if you add snow straight to a hot pan, it just burns off and disappears.

First, you need to start with a little bit of water and heat that up. Then you add a small amount of snow, which absorbs the warm water and starts to melt. When the snow has disappeared, you add more snow. It’s a time-consuming job!

At larger camps, where there is a little bit of electrical power (like Sky-Blu) teams can have a bread-maker. There aren’t really any natural smells in Antarctica, so the smell of fresh bread in the morning is a real luxury.

And what about… toilets?  

The set up for toilets can look very different depending on where you are. For people that are staying in a field tent, a common field toilet setup is a bucket dug into the snow with a wooden seat on top. Normally, this is in a separate tent, or sometimes in an igloo (called a ‘pooloo’!)

All solid waste is collected and taken back to the nearest research station where it’s disposed of.

Navigating in Antarctica 

Navigating the icy continent is a tricky business. Without solid paths to follow, and visibility changing as snowstorms come and go, it can be dangerous stepping outside of your station door, let alone isolated in the deep field! 

Look out, crevasse ahead 

One danger of travelling across snow and ice is not seeing what’s beneath it. A big concern in Antarctica is crevasses. These are deep cracks in glaciers and ice sheets that form when ice is under stress. This could be from glaciers flowing too fast downhill, or flowing over bumps and hollows in the rock below.

The best weather for spotting crevasses is when the sun is bright and low. Crevasses often have visible ‘features’ across the surface. A low sun casts shadows from these raised areas, making them much easier to spot.

Crossing crevasses

If a field team reach an area where they think they are crevasses, everyone stops and slowly investigates the terrain in front of them. Someone is sent ahead to probe the ground. Very slowly, they walk forward, pushing a shovel or probe into the ground, feeling for if the snow gives way beneath them. They do this while tied on to a Field Guide or a skidoo, which will catch them if they fall into a crevasse.

If they find a crevasse, they explore further. They dig around it, finding the edge nearest to them and – if its narrow enough, the far edge. If they cross the crevasse, they’ll mark it with flags. This means if they find a crevasse ahead which can’t be crossed, they have a safe route back marked out.

Sometimes the crevasses can be crossed. Sometimes you have to go round them. If the crevasse is big enough, the Field Guide can abseil into the crevasse to see how long it is, and if they can get around it. However, sometimes the crevasses are too big and dangerous, and there’s no option but to turnaround and head back home.

Over time, Field Guides learn to read the landscape around them. They can recognise when the shape of the landscape around them means crevasses are likely, and what those crevasses might be like.

Meet Mike Brian – Antarctic camping expert

Mike is currently the Deputy Station Operations Manager for Rothera Research Station, but he was a Field Guide at Rothera for three seasons. We quizzed him about life on the ice.