Digging Antarctica

 

There is something odd about going to Antarctica to shoveling snow. Talk about your job security! Dig out, the wind blows and drifts form, dig out, and repeat. It is an inevitable part of life on The Ice. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you have a piece of heavy equipment and a good operator like Mark or James. More often than not you only have a shovel or are digging out tents or fuel bladders where heavy equipment should not go.

The shovel is also known as a D1. My favorite is the short handled, square ended steel shovel (not a stinking grain scoop). Good shoveling is as much an art as it is effort. I know very smart people who could not dig a hole in the snow to save their lives. As much of every shovel full goes back in the hole as goes out. There are very strong people who just don’t get it; the snow flies all over the place. You have to know when to use it to chop and how much snow to take on each swing. Too much and it doesn’t go where you want it. Too little and it is wasted effort. Lots of subtlety to it.

One of the trickiest tasks is digging your way out of a tent from inside. If your door does not have the proper orientation to the wind (and this season, mine did not) the door becomes drifted in. The trick is to open the zipper from the top enough to get your hand out and push the snow away till you can get your shoulders through the hole and dive out. If you can’t get the zipper open the trick is to go back to sleep and hope someone misses you either at breakfast or at muster. With luck, they like you enough to send someone to dig you out.