Last week I was in survival training, which entails navigating with a compass and maps a GPS and learning how to survive on your own in the open in Antarctica without shelter (no tent).
Interestingly down here in Antarctica compasses won’t point to magnetic North they are out by around a 100 degrees this makes navigating with a compass and maps more difficult. GPS is also unreliable at times due to blizzards and the low angle; our satellite dish points only 7 degrees above the horizon.
I have included a few short videos; one from inside the Bivy. Let’s say you get caught in a Blizzard (we had a Blizzard the night while I was on the survival which was great as it made the training real) there is no shelter, so you have to Bivy it. The Bivy we have was like big bag similar in shape to what your sleeping bag packs but yellow transmits light and is noisy like a chip packet with a drawstring at one end and it keeps the wind off you.
You get your Bivy off your backpack unroll it (don’t let it blow away or you in big trouble) throw your backpack in, climb into it pull the drawstring get your sleeping bag out and climb into it and shelter from the Blizzard.
Whats its like in a Bivy? Wind over a 100 km an hour so very noisy, minus 17 a bit cold and because the sun does not set it’s like daylight inside the Bivy. Another interesting observation or two is that your breath condenses on the inside of the Bivy then freezes and falls onto you, it was like it had lightly snowed inside the Bivy. I reached for my water bottle (inside the Bivy next to my sleeping bag) to get a drink, but the water had frozen a rooky mistake I should have had it the sleeping bag.
I climbed in at 7:30 PM and out the next day at 6:30 AM didn’t get much sleep, but it was an awesome experience.
Walking from the Field Training Office to the Red Shed