Clive the GA teaching us mountaineering skills promised us lots of physical activity and we did indeed get a lot! After packing up camp on thursday which meant lots of digging of snow from around the tents we headed back down to base in the snow cat and skidoos. We then kitted ourselves out in mountaineering equipment including boots, crampoons and ice axes. We all learnt how to tie together when glacier travelling so that if one person falls in a crevasse the other can haul them out.

We spent 4 hours behind the hanger on the icy sloop learning the 4 S’s – stepping, slipping, sliding and stopping (one GA added in screaming!). There are so many different techniques to learn. We also learnt how to use crampons and the different stepping techniques for going up and down the hill – french, front pointing, american and balling up. My legs really felt the work out as I spend so much time on my bum on a boat. The big one was learning to do an ice axe arrest in the case of falling down a slope towards a danger. Clive is a great teacher and built each skill up like building blocks.

We all had to learn how to hold an ice axe and then practice sliding feet first on our back, head first on our front and head first on our back down the ice and then stopping ourselves with the ice axe. By the end of the session we were all a bit bruised and cold and wet but it was really great fun. We didn’t finish all the mountaineering instruction so Clive is kindly giving up his day off this sunday and we are going to learn crevasse rescue and go for a climb in the technical travel area.

In the evening we went for a walk around Rothera point and watched the sun set as much as it does here at 11pm.