Scott’s side of the tent with the central spine of the tent to his left shoulder.

 Another tent day. We’re not going out to collect our elusive extraterrestrial quarry on this the 28th December. Weather is not cooperating, so we have to make a day of it in our 7 x 7 foot home.

Drinking a cup of coffee as I write, as the side of the tent rhythmically thuds and whops as the winds batter it (AeroPress coffee makers are amazing by the way – better coffee out here than in McMurdo). The tent is a great shelter, keeping us relatively warm and comfortable in this harsh environment.
What’s it like on a tent day? Well’ let’s start with a tent morning. For a start, discovering it’s a tent day is not hard. It sounds like we are in a wind tunnel running at full bore. We certainly didn’t need our fearless leader and mountaineer, John Schutt, to come and tell us it was a tent day at 7am this morning, even though he did. As Scott eluded to in his last post, I think John must sleep outside. It’s too palatial to be in a Scott tent for him.
After you’ve ascertained it’s a tent day, a sensible option is to groan, roll over in your warm ‘Feathered Friends’ goose down sleeping bag, tuck your ‘Mammoth Mountain’ beannie back over your eyes and ears and fall back to sleep.
When you check your watch for the fifteenth time, as it appears a freight train is passing within six inches of your tent wall, and you discover it’s 10am, the synapses trigger and the word ‘lazy’ springs into your head.
Except, how can you be lazy on a tent day? That’s impossible. All you have to do is stay inside and perhaps brave the elements once or twice for a ‘Poo Tent’ visit, to empty the ‘Pee bottles’ (see Mentioning the Unmentionable post), or to get your nice frozen dinner.
Nonetheless, you get up…. slowly….. First you light the propane gas stove, to give the tent a bit of warmth. It might be a change of clothes day, like it was for me today. That’s something to savour, so you undertake this slowly. Takes you to 10.30am or so.
At the same time, you pour some water out of one of the Thermos flasks into a saucepan. This water required three hours to ‘make’ last night from +100,000 year old ice. It’s very important to get the right balance of boiling the water and keeping some naked flame, otherwise the tent temperature plummets below zero degrees Celcius.
Once the water is boiled, you can make a brew with the AeroPress and some marvellous ‘Sprouts Classic Blend French Roast’ all the way from my local Sprouts in sunny California. Outcome? Deliciousness!
So what’s next? Cleaning, groceries, checking the email? None of that! Freedom! No, time to consider the finer points of tent design by studying the yellow tent walls for the millionth time, to read ‘Nansen the biography’ (Roland Huntford – enjoyable read), ‘Gravity a short introduction’ (Timothy Clifton – Space-Time extravaganza), brush your teeth, or perhaps make some breakfast/brunch/lunch. You could even write a blog.
By now, its eleven o’clock and your tent mate is still snoring gently to the rhythm of the battering wind. Time is something we have abundance of, but space is something we do not have. 7 x 7 ft for the interior of the tent is a little generous, you see. The tent is about 7 x 7 at the base, but all four sides taper to a point in the roof at about 7 ft, giving the appearance of a pyramid. That means, if you sit up, your shoulders touch the wall.
Let me describe the layout of the tent to you. For reference, let’s start with the door. That’s to the north, and down wind, of course. Its a round edifice with an inner canvas tunnel that you can tie off, and an outer hard canvas liner that’s also in the shape of a tunnel. Getting in and out, especially when then 2.5 x 2.5 ft tunnels are iced up, is a bit of a work out. Imagine the scene from Alien as the thing that sticks to the face of some ridiculous victim (why don’t they run when they see it writhing inside it’s pod?) squirms out; that’s us getting out of the tent everyday. Nonetheless, the tent doors are highly effective at keeping heat in and wind and blowing ice crystals out.
Okay, if you ‘Superman’ through the door of our tent you’ll end up in a heap on the ‘Crash Pads’. In front of you will be the wooden ‘Kitchen’ box (contains pots, pans, etc..). Behind that is the Coleman stove…..running. Behind that, the blue ‘Food’ box (mainly contains all of Scott’s chocolate stash), and jammed up against the back southern side of the tent the orange ‘Tent’ box (contains items we have not figured out how to use, including a sponge attached to a handle that you can fill with washing up liquid, except we do not have any washing up liquid!).
What I just described is really the backbone of the tent. It’s where all the communal stuff between myself and the other inmate, Scott, are done. Above this communal area we hang our boots, socks, gloves, a food ‘thaw’ bag, giving the feeling of being in a small cave with giant stalagtites.
It’s now 11.20 and I just chugged my coffee as it was beginning to get cold. Now you get a feel for the central ‘backbone’, the command center of the tent. Here you might also find rubbish/trash from the night before (wetwipes, teabags etc) and half-empty (Scott) to full (me) Pee bottles.
What about the east side of the tent (or left as you Superman in)? That’s Scott’s kingdom. The domain of the Canadian Yeti. Habitat of the wild man of Guelph. It looks like a whirlwind picked everything up, including him, and put it all down randomly.
So I’ll leave that side of the tent and talk about mine. It’s a modest space – about 2.5 ft x 6.5 ft, once you account for the tent walls. I’m lying writing on two crash pads, sandwiched within which is a deflatted ‘Thermarest’ (it looks like Freddy Kruger went to town on it last season, it’s so patched up). My head is resting on my ‘Feathered Friends’ sleeping bag (marvelous contraption – I’ve been warm as toast in it).
Along the sides of the tent I have clothes. My ‘Big Red’ parka at my feet, my Ski pants/trousers and other gear along the sides, and my coffee making equipment, and other important gear at my head. You can really describe it as a nest… except MUCH neater than my erstwhile tent mate!
It’s now 11.30 am and Scott just stopped snoring. The wind is really howling now. I’m contemplating another cup of coffee. I should have enough coffee grounds to take me to the end. I finished my first full bag after 12 days, which was on the 26th December. Should be fine.
Back to the tent description. I’m sitting up now, resting the ‘blog kit’ on the ‘Kitchen’ box (remember where that is?) and something is sticking into my back. That’s because our Scott tents are equipped with pockets about two feet above the tent floor. These are very handy. I store my toiletries in one pocket, books etc.. in another, gloves and balaclavas in one, power cords etc., and then my computer….let’s not talk about that. A sore point – perhaps I’ll come back to it in another blog.
Anyhow, my computer is sticking into my back as I type. To sum all of this up, the space we have is finite, but we make it home. When the chocolate-guzzling wild man of Guelph eventually rises from his slumber, perhaps we’ll cook something for lunch together. We’ll likely talk about the weather and discuss the possibility of searching for more meteorites. Or, perhaps, we’ll just go back to sleeping….
Posted by James from wind alley, Nødtvedt Nunataks, Antarctica on 28 Dec 2017 at 11.40 Local.