Wildguzzi.com
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: wirespokes on April 08, 2019, 01:04:01 PM
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I just got back from Antarctica last month working on a construction project down there. Someone quipped "Well, you can cross that off your bucket list!". Funny thing is, it never was on my bucket list.
There's a lot I could talk about what it's like there, but one of the main things is the shortage of oxygen. Supposedly the earth flings the atmosphere out denser around the equator, so it's kinda thin at the poles. It's supposedly more like being at 10,000 feet even though I was at sea level. What this means is I was low energy for the five weeks there, and just hauling myself, and all the clothing, up a small hill was tiring. What I didn't know is that the body will acclimate by producing more red blood cells to capture more oxygen.
So you can imagine how impressed I am by this guy's achievement:
http://tinyurl.com/y334bt9m
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Between the thin air, and glare off the snow, I bet everyone had headaches.
Still, must have been one heck of an experience. :thumb:
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A fellow in a bar said he could run to the top of Pikes Peak and have enough energy left to make love to three women.
Tex
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A fellow in a bar said he could run to the top of Pikes Peak and have enough energy left to make love to three women.
Tex
Right after he said that, the bartender cut him off, as he had enough to drink :boozing:
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I just got back from Antarctica last month working on a construction project down there. Someone quipped "Well, you can cross that off your bucket list!". Funny thing is, it never was on my bucket list.
There's a lot I could talk about what it's like there, but one of the main things is the shortage of oxygen. Supposedly the earth flings the atmosphere out denser around the equator, so it's kinda thin at the poles. It's supposedly more like being at 10,000 feet even though I was at sea level. What this means is I was low energy for the five weeks there, and just hauling myself, and all the clothing, up a small hill was tiring. What I didn't know is that the body will acclimate by producing more red blood cells to capture more oxygen.
So you can imagine how impressed I am by this guy's achievement:
http://tinyurl.com/y334bt9m
I thought you were always low energy :boozing:
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Thank you for posting the link. Wonderful story. R3~
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I thought you were always low energy :boozing:
Thanks a LOT, dude! :rolleyes:
I don't recall you being super peppy after helping me replace the T3 clutch that day. :wink:
Thanks for the help, and I still owe you for that.
Yeah, that's an amazing story, huh?
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How did you get to Antarctica? Some get to fly in, but many have to take the long boat ride from Hobart. GUZZI CONNECTION.!!!! The Chief Engineer on the Aurora Australis is an avid moto collector with some fine Guzzis in his stable. I've stayed at his home on Tasmania and he has here with us in California. Really fine chap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Australis_(icebreaker) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Australis_(icebreaker))
Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA
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Thanks a LOT, dude! :rolleyes:
I don't recall you being super peppy after helping me replace the T3 clutch that day. :wink:
Thanks for the help, and I still owe you for that.
Yeah, that's an amazing story, huh?
I got tired after you broke my coffee cup.
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I didn't get to see the ice breaker, it left a couple days before I got to McMurdo. No boat ride for me, we flew in on the C17 - a giant military cargo plane. Five hour flight from Christchurch.
We managed to get 1/3 of the job done so will be heading back probably this coming November. Maybe this next time I'll be able to hook up with some of the NZ guzzi guys.
Forgot about that Matt - guess I owe you a coffee cup too. :cry:
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I didn't get to see the ice breaker, it left a couple days before I got to McMurdo. No boat ride for me, we flew in on the C17 - a giant military cargo plane. Five hour flight from Christchurch.
We managed to get 1/3 of the job done so will be heading back probably this coming November. Maybe this next time I'll be able to hook up with some of the NZ guzzi guys.
Forgot about that Matt - guess I owe you a coffee cup too. :cry:
Ok sounds like you were working at McMurdo rather than Pole station then.. Scott Base is just over the hill from there as you no doubt found out
Kev
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One beautiful day I walked from Mc Murdo to Scott base and back. In the mid eighties that was like going from an old mining camp to a modern lunar station. Scott Base was incredibly well built and engineered for comfort. Whereas Mc Murdo was mostly made from the packing boxes of things shipped in back in the late fifties and sixties. The packing boxes sere specially designed to do this with being mostly insulated walls so that you could quickly build a box with an air lock type door. Scott base was built like a space station with all the buildings connected inside by tunnels so that you need never go out doors to get from one area to another.
The walk was a boring look at lots and lots of snow and ice. It would have been much better on a TW 200 motorcycle.
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McMurdo is a much larger place than Scott Base. The population fluctuates from a high of around 1000 in the middle of summer to a support crew of around 100 over the winter months. And yes, it's a collection of buildings, though not pre-fab anymore, spread over a fairly large area. We worked 7 to 5 six days a week, all outside work, so didn't feel much like doing outside stuff my time off. Besides, with the low oxygen content there I wasn't all that energetic after a full day working. I did manage to climb Ob(servation) Hill three times (a hill of about 1000 ft) and hike to Castle Rock twice - both times in temps at or below 0F with 20 or 30mph winds. It was only a 3 mile hike, but it wasn't easy! Scott base would have been easy in comparison, but I took the shuttle there instead. And you're right, Kev, Scott base is a pretty nice enclosed space with corridors connecting everything. But it's a much smaller operation than McMurdo - I don't think the summer population is much over 100.
I wanted a ride in the sno cat really bad, but it just didn't work out. It's from the 50s and built in Oregon with a Detroit diesel and an Allison transmission. Super cool little truck! Ob Hill is visible in the background.
(https://i.ibb.co/rFM69YZ/IMG-0434.jpg) (https://ibb.co/rFM69YZ)
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wirespokes: Apropo to the power filled sprint to finish, in the zone.
Memory is fading quickly, but after a few days pondering I recalled research I did (strictly for myself). Others may find it interesting or 'have been there'.
Earlier in life I cranked out a lot of miles, for days, even weeks at a time. Occasionally the drive/ride would clearly reach a point of FLOW, or otherwise described as in the ZONE. For some time didn't recognize it as such; just thought I was having a good day. The first time it lasted for perhaps an hour or more, it needed an explanation. The few persons I explained it to could only say; Enjoy it' or tell me how to get there' or you're shittin*' me. A friend from high school became a psychiatrist. (he rides!) I called him. He pointed me to Mihaly Csikszentmihaly.
How good is Flow? Good enough to think you could kick off your skis and still maintain speed, direction & clear thinking. Or change gears several hundred times, at speeds betwixt 30 and 80 on highways in mountains. No synchro's. No clutch. Even switched my driving gloves to the wrong hands and could not screw up.
I think I've aged out of it. But by damn it was great whenever it turned on. Someone spiritual may claim they can get there at will. Am I a born skeptic or just selfish?
BTW: My MD, PhD, psychiatrist friend still ride together, - sometimes.
Wishing you all could be there at least once. R3~
https://positivepsychologyprogram.com › Experts & Scientists
8 Ways To Create Flow According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [+TED ...
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A fellow in a bar said he could run to the top of Pikes Peak and have enough energy left to make love to three women.
Tex
I've met that guy...... lol. I've run the Pikes Peak Marathon route 3 times, and twice more just the ascent. It became a bit of an obsession and challenge. There is a local who does it weekly, and this guy does the entire route from the artsy town at the bottom and back faster than any of us could even do the ascent. We met him a few times on the trail and he would boast about how easy it was to pick up 'chicks' at the top and well, you know....... There is a tradition out there of people at the top giving those who do the ascent a ride to the bottom. We didn't participate in such 'action' we just grabbed a donut and started the return trip..... Though there was that one time......... But it was my honeymoon, so that doesnt count. lol My best time round trip was 9:10, with the ascent being an even 5. Terrible time for a guy who could run a 3:10 marathon, but hey, it was fun while it lasted.
OK, back on topic, the air above the woodline is very thin, and at 10K + is dangerous. I imagine the lack of vegetation on land and sea also contributes to the rarefied air supply. Would love to see pics of the OP's trip and time in the Antarctic, and glad he's back safe. That's definitely a great bucket list checkoff! I'm hoping that the Ice melts so I can go and not die.... Cmon global warming... or climate change or whatever they are calling it these days.
That dude doing it alone....... KUDOS to him. He isn't the guy trying to prove the earth is flat is he? hahaha
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:whip2: in
One beautiful day I walked from Mc Murdo to Scott base and back. In the mid eighties that was like going from an old mining camp to a modern lunar station. Scott Base was incredibly well built and engineered for comfort. Whereas Mc Murdo was mostly made from the packing boxes of things shipped in back in the late fifties and sixties. The packing boxes sere specially designed to do this with being mostly insulated walls so that you could quickly build a box with an air lock type door. Scott base was built like a space station with all the buildings connected inside by tunnels so that you need never go out doors to get from one area to another.
The walk was a boring look at lots and lots of snow and ice. It would have been much better on a TW 200 motorcycle.
The base must have been rebuilt by then, it was a collection of boxes connected by covered ways in the early seventies. Shtered from the weather but you had to go through two freezer type doors to enter each hut. Eleven guys over winter then & something like 150 over in Mac town.
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The two freezer doors are connected by an 8 foot alcove. the way you never have both doors open at the same time. that's why I called it an airlock.
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So you can imagine how impressed I am by this guy's achievement:
http://tinyurl.com/y334bt9m
O'Brady's trip is impressive as hell but not without controversy. I think Ousland's crossing was the more legitimate achievement.
https://explorersweb.com/2019/01/09/crossing-antarctica-how-the-confusion-began-and-where-do-we-go-from-here/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/opinion/antarctica-obrady-rudd-solo-crossing.html?login=email&auth=login-email
https://explorersweb.com/2018/12/27/obradys-antarctic-crossing-was-it-really-unassisted/
https://gearjunkie.com/colin-obrady-polar-exploration
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Bulldog - I didn't know that about Pikes Peak. I'd heard of auto races to the top, but not the run. Your story reminds me of the hill right next to McMurdo called Ob Hill (short for Observation). I'd guess it's about 1000 ft high and a cinder cone from Mt Erebus maybe ten miles away. One of the guys on the construction crew is a mountain climber and in excellent shape. He's planning to climb one of the peaks in Nepal next month just to give you an idea. Climbing Ob hill for him doesn't even get him breathing hard. Me, I had to stop every hundred feet to catch my breath and slow the heartbeat. It only takes about 20 or 30 minutes to climb, but at that rarefied atmosphere it's a work out. A 25-year-old on our crew didn't have any trouble hiking it, though he noticed he didn't feel as peppy as he would have at home. So this mountain climber decided to hike it three times in succession to get a little bit of a work out. I figured it would take him an hour and a half for the three times, the 25-year-old figured an hour. Turned out it was an hour and a half due to the snow that made some areas rather slippery. He lapped others climbing the hill who asked in amazement the second time seeing him how many times he climbed it a day??? For most of us, once a week was enough.
Good point on the lack of vegetation not generating oxygen. There's no grass there, trees, shrubs - it's all just black rock and white snow. No worms, no flying or crawling bugs, only seals, penguins and a seagull-like bird called Skuas.
I'd never thought if it before, but previously had assumed that the sun was up most of the time in the summer. I didn't really realize what that meant. Yes, of course it's light all day, but there's more to it than that. In the very middle of summer I'm sure the sun stays pretty much directly overhead. I wasn't there in the middle of summer - that point had already gone when I got there. What happens is the sun circles in the sky till finally in March it's dropped low enough to the horizon that in the middle of the 'night hours' it passes behind one of the mountains and there's a few minutes of dusk with some red sunset clouds. After that it happens fast and a week later there are several hours of true night. In the middle of winter there's an hour or two of dusk around noon, but black the rest of the time. If it's clear in the winter it's possible sometimes to see the southern lights. That would be cool, but winters sound miserable and horribly boring. They've played hide and seek in the winter to relieve the boredom. How bad is that???
The wind speed indicator broke last winter at 200mph - who knows the top speed of that gust? I don't think you'd want to venture out in those conditions, and makes me wonder what it was like for those adventurers a hundred years ago wintering over in those small huts.
I think the population at Scott base is still about the same. Those freezer doors are an interesting solution - very common for outside entrances.
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Earlier in life I cranked out a lot of miles, for days, even weeks at a time. Occasionally the drive/ride would clearly reach a point of FLOW, or otherwise described as in the ZONE. For some time didn't recognize it as such; just thought I was having a good day. The first time it lasted for perhaps an hour or more, it needed an explanation. The few persons I explained it to could only say; Enjoy it' or tell me how to get there' or you're shittin*' me. A friend from high school became a psychiatrist. (he rides!) I called him. He pointed me to Mihaly Csikszentmihaly.
This reminds me of something I read by Forrest Carter in Watch For Me On The Mountain - an account of Geronimo from a native American viewpoint. The Apache would do something similar as you're talking about. They could run 100 miles a day in the desert. They would get into 'the ZONE' and just go. It's like a spiritual state that surpasses the physical. I think you'd like the book - I've read it at least three times and love it more each time.
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There's an interesting memorial to Scott and his team at the top of observation hill, I have a photo of it somewhere . I spent a year down there and yes time does drag a bit mid Winter. We resorted to playing tiddly winks one night for a bit of light entertainment. The Americans invited us over for a traditional egg rolling competition one day, some wag thought it would be funny so we went along with it,
One of our team had an American climbing buddy who used to climb Castle Rock not far from base. We attempted to climb mount Erebus which is a walk in the park as far as mountains go apparently. Got about a third of the way up when one of us develop severe stomach cramps so we turned back.
Even in the middle of winter it's not pitch black down there, on a moonlight night it's almost like daytime. So much ice and snow to reflect the light .
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Yeah, I've got a photo of the memorial as well. There's a 100-year-old wooden cross up there and it's not at all weathered.
These days Erebus is off limits - supposedly too many never returned.
When I hiked to Castle Rock the muscle that lifts my right knee got stressed out so it was a painful hike back. And then the second time around, the left one freaked out. Damn, that was painful! Guess I haven't been exercising enough. Funny that after a hot shower and dinner it was fine.
Interesting about it not being all that dark down there mid winter. These days, in order to stay there through the winter a psychological exam is required. Guys have gone crazy and due to lack of facilities they lock him in a room with someone to watch him. That could go on forever considering there's no way out of there till the next flight in August if the weather permits. May, June, and July the weather isn't fit for air travel, so you're stranded for three months. As one of our crew liked to joke, it's a minimum security prison.
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wirespokes:
"This reminds me of something I read by Forrest Carter in Watch For Me On The Mountain -"
Thank you very much. R3~
Although I don't fish my favorite author is Harry Middleton: On The Spine of Time, The Earth is enough, The Bright Country, That Sweet Country, others.
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Thanks R3, I'll have to check him out.
Forrest Carter wrote three books, and I've read each at least three times since being introduced to him 20 years ago. Two have had movies made from them, but the books are a zillion times better.
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O'Brady's trip is impressive as hell but not without controversy. I think Ousland's crossing was the more legitimate achievement.
https://explorersweb.com/2019/01/09/crossing-antarctica-how-the-confusion-began-and-where-do-we-go-from-here/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/opinion/antarctica-obrady-rudd-solo-crossing.html?login=email&auth=login-email
https://explorersweb.com/2018/12/27/obradys-antarctic-crossing-was-it-really-unassisted/
https://gearjunkie.com/colin-obrady-polar-exploration
Thanks, very interesting and illuminating.
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(https://i.ibb.co/y6WJybd/PICT0111.jpg) (https://ibb.co/y6WJybd)
(https://i.ibb.co/ZVjwWrG/PICT0113.jpg) (https://ibb.co/ZVjwWrG)
(https://i.ibb.co/9TgZ1zf/PICT0116.jpg) (https://ibb.co/9TgZ1zf)
transformers dark side of the moon characters (https://movieplotholes.com/transformers-dark-of-the-moon)
(https://i.ibb.co/HTwCyVS/BW-winter-over-team.jpg) (https://ibb.co/HTwCyVS)
A few of my Scott Base photos, mainly colour slides that are starting to fade away.
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Cool photos, Kev!
Uh... what exactly are they doing with the thingamabob tied to the back belt loops?
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Cool photos, Kev!
Uh... what exactly are they doing with the thingamabob tied to the back belt loops?
Lol, well the objective is to drop the cork into a cup of water then extingush the candle I seem to recall.
Very scientific 😁
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Bulldog - I didn't know that about Pikes Peak. I'd heard of auto races to the top, but not the run. Your story reminds me of the hill right next to McMurdo called Ob Hill (short for Observation). I'd guess it's about 1000 ft high and a cinder cone from Mt Erebus maybe ten miles away. One of the guys on the construction crew is a mountain climber and in excellent shape. He's planning to climb one of the peaks in Nepal next month just to give you an idea. Climbing Ob hill for him doesn't even get him breathing hard. Me, I had to stop every hundred feet to catch my breath and slow the heartbeat. It only takes about 20 or 30 minutes to climb, but at that rarefied atmosphere it's a work out. A 25-year-old on our crew didn't have any trouble hiking it, though he noticed he didn't feel as peppy as he would have at home. So this mountain climber decided to hike it three times in succession to get a little bit of a work out. I figured it would take him an hour and a half for the three times, the 25-year-old figured an hour. Turned out it was an hour and a half due to the snow that made some areas rather slippery. He lapped others climbing the hill who asked in amazement the second time seeing him how many times he climbed it a day??? For most of us, once a week was enough.
Good point on the lack of vegetation not generating oxygen. There's no grass there, trees, shrubs - it's all just black rock and white snow. No worms, no flying or crawling bugs, only seals, penguins and a seagull-like bird called Skuas.
I'd never thought if it before, but previously had assumed that the sun was up most of the time in the summer. I didn't really realize what that meant. Yes, of course it's light all day, but there's more to it than that. In the very middle of summer I'm sure the sun stays pretty much directly overhead. I wasn't there in the middle of summer - that point had already gone when I got there. What happens is the sun circles in the sky till finally in March it's dropped low enough to the horizon that in the middle of the 'night hours' it passes behind one of the mountains and there's a few minutes of dusk with some red sunset clouds. After that it happens fast and a week later there are several hours of true night. In the middle of winter there's an hour or two of dusk around noon, but black the rest of the time. If it's clear in the winter it's possible sometimes to see the southern lights. That would be cool, but winters sound miserable and horribly boring. They've played hide and seek in the winter to relieve the boredom. How bad is that???
The wind speed indicator broke last winter at 200mph - who knows the top speed of that gust? I don't think you'd want to venture out in those conditions, and makes me wonder what it was like for those adventurers a hundred years ago wintering over in those small huts.
I think the population at Scott base is still about the same. Those freezer doors are an interesting solution - very common for outside entrances.
The 'running' trail is on the opposite side of from the motor vehicle trail, it is called Barr Trail, and starts where the cog railroad station is.
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One beautiful day I walked from Mc Murdo to Scott base and back. In the mid eighties that was like going from an old mining camp to a modern lunar station. Scott Base was incredibly well built and engineered for comfort. Whereas Mc Murdo was mostly made from the packing boxes of things shipped in back in the late fifties and sixties. The packing boxes sere specially designed to do this with being mostly insulated walls so that you could quickly build a box with an air lock type door. Scott base was built like a space station with all the buildings connected inside by tunnels so that you need never go out doors to get from one area to another.
The walk was a boring look at lots and lots of snow and ice. It would have been much better on a TW 200 motorcycle.
Wow, bringing back lots of memories! I was stationed at McMurdo in 1987-88 as a young lad. Looks like not too much has changed! Being a GFA, I had to stay in a quonset hut on the outskirts of town with 9 others....made of 1-inch thick insulated tent fabric. The ratio of men to women was like 10:1 and the women loved it. Lots of drinking to pass the time. The military ran the mess hall, the px store and the bars. Civvies could go to any bar they wanted but the military guys were segregated by rank. Learned real quick not to walk in with a hat on at the Officer's Club :)
Wildlife was limited to penguins, seals and skuas. Orcas along the ice edge looking for grub.
A real neat culture and an experience I would not trade for anything.
People....my cousins were the Strauts (Skip, Sue, and Mikey), I was hired by Cole Mather, worked for "Naked" Mike Patterson, alongside Johnny "Johnny P" Pfieffer, Marcello DiGuidicci, so many other names that elude me but he faces are still emblazoned in my mind...
I could go on and on...good times.
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Yeah, drinking is a big thing there. Three taverns at McMurdo, and all closed for a week or so while the cargo ship is there in January. Things got too rowdy in the past, drink and sailors, etc. so the ban. Everyone couldn't wait for the ship to leave.
The cargo ship comes only once a year, preceded by the ice breaker allowing it access. The cargo ship holds something like 550 of those 40' containers and those supplies last the whole year. The construction work planned over the next 8 years will change all that. Next winter the construction company has 500 containers of their own scheduled, which means a second ship. One of the problems they face is a way to remove the two large cranes being delivered - they're larger than the bridge from the dock to the shore so can't just be driven ashore.
One nice clear warm day I was admiring the view and rugged mountains on the other side of the channel when a woman walked by. I commented on the view and she told me about the Fata Morgana - a mirage that happens sometimes on nice days. I hadn't figured it out, but the camera did capture it. I'll see if I can dig up the photo. The mirage makes the opposite shore look like there's an immense cliff wall dropping straight down into the ocean.
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True that, the guys with the "NAVCHAPGRU" emblazoned jumpsuits were a rowdy bunch, jumped a couple of us civvies back in the day...fighting is verboten, they would ship you on the next plane out.
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One of the young kids on the steel crew got really drunk and was warned to control himself by the site super, no less. A week later he was found in the middle of the night passed out in the cafeteria. When they couldn't wake him, he was taken to the hospital. After doing tests, discovered a high blood alcohol content. He was told he could work the next week before the plane came, then he would leave and not coming back.
It can be way below zero in the middle of the night, and if he'd collapsed outside he could have died in less than an hour, or perhaps only lost his hands, feet and nose. Doesn't take long at those temps.
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Yeah, drinking is a big thing there. Three taverns at McMurdo, and all closed for a week or so while the cargo ship is there in January. Things got too rowdy in the past, drink and sailors, etc. so the ban. Everyone couldn't wait for the ship to leave.
The cargo ship comes only once a year, preceded by the ice breaker allowing it access. The cargo ship holds something like 550 of those 40' containers and those supplies last the whole year. The construction work planned over the next 8 years will change all that. Next winter the construction company has 500 containers of their own scheduled, which means a second ship. One of the problems they face is a way to remove the two large cranes being delivered - they're larger than the bridge from the dock to the shore so can't just be driven ashore.
One nice clear warm day I was admiring the view and rugged mountains on the other side of the channel when a woman walked by. I commented on the view and she told me about the Fata Morgana - a mirage that happens sometimes on nice days. I hadn't figured it out, but the camera did capture it. I'll see if I can dig up the photo. The mirage makes the opposite shore look like there's an immense cliff wall dropping straight down into the ocean.
Yeh the Royal Society Ranges are quite spectacular but are you sure the woman wasn't a mirage ???
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Yeh the Royal Society Ranges are quite spectacular but are you sure the woman wasn't a mirage ???
Good point! Highly possible, and I never saw her again...