To be certified to leave the safety of McMurdo base, Pat and I will be going through wilderness survival training, or 'Happy Camper'. At some points in our deployment, we'll be dropped off by helicopter in remote locations. If a storm were to come in and prevent the helicopter from returning to pick us up, we'd need to hunker down and camp out.
We'll spend tomorrow night out on the ice, where I think we'll be digging snow caves, melting snow, and reconstituting dried food. I'll be back on January 8th 5th.