Post winter trips September 2004

30 September, 2004 Halley

In preparation for the post winter trips and any fieldwork that might be required Ed our GA gave some practice sessions in the garage jumaring up to the garage ceiling and abseiling down. This included a change from abseiling to jumaring and a change from jumaring to abseiling while on the rope.

When one person was on the rope the others practiced roping up and tying Knots.

An exercise in pitching the emergency pup tents in high winds turned into a competition Rhian and Craig may have pitched their tent faster than Ed and Graham but there was an unresolved issue over the quality and how long the tent would have stood upright.

Each post winter trip has 10 days allocated to it and 2 of these are used for packing and unpacking. This leaves 8 days away off base. So far the winter trips have not had much luck with the weather both high winds and poor visibility limited the time spent off base. Sledge Golf consisted of Russ, Suart and Frank. They spent 4 days in the Rumples and 1 day at creek 2 caboose.

Sledge Hotel consisted of Vanessa, Tommo and Kev. They faired slightly worse with 4 days at the rumples but during one of these days they spent the day at the campsite due to bad weather. Hopefully sledge India will have better weather.