Krissie's Blog - 4

Apr 8, 02:50 PM

We have a lot of photos from 1960-1961, so you might see me do a “Then and Now” type deal every now and then.
So I found these photos on our Common Drive of a man in various states of dress. He’s in the clinic in the photos. In our post office we have a photo of the same man running his post office. That photo says he could possibly be LT Phil K. Swartz, Jr., OIC/Medical Officer.

In his first picture he’s down to his skivvies. I brought long underwear with me, but I’ve worn it maybe twice. During the summer I would always get a little burr under my skin when I would come up to the Station in the morning and see people, with the same amount of ice time as I had, wandering around in their pajamas. They could just roll out of bed and go to the galley, whereas I had to get dressed and walk a quarter-mile, in the snow, uphill…both ways. But now I’m Station-spoiled and can do the same thing. So this is my typical early morning/late night attire: pajama pants, a t-shirt, and flip-flops. My mom wanted to see how long my hair is, so that’s why it’s down in this shot.

In this next photo Phil is wearing what I assume is his everyday Station work clothes. I find it odd that he’s wearing shoes with his skivvies but only gray wool socks with his work clothes. I would’ve done it the other way around. This was still back when the staff here was only the Navy and the U.S. Weather Bureau. It’s hard to tell people to have a dress code when you’re only concerned with doing your job and surviving…which is why I look like a shlump in my photo, but Phil still wears an undershirt and tucks his shirt in.

A most unflattering photo of me. The outfit isn’t too different from my pajamas. I don’t know what my pants cuffs are doing. Hopefully they don’t always do that. The Station is pretty comfortable temperature-wise at 68°F. Some days are a little colder than others. So if you ever see that House episode, starring Mira Sorvino as the South Pole doctor who has mysterious symptoms because she broke her toe and didn’t know it, don’t believe it. It’s not cold enough down here that you wouldn’t take your socks off for a week and not notice that your toe is broken. I’d say you’re in pretty bad shape if you’re inside and you have a completely numb extremity. When you get frostbite, your body parts can go numb while you’re outside. But when you warm up again…holy moly is it painful! It’s called the Screaming Meanies because it hurts so badly. The first time I got them, I immediately felt like I had the flu and the stomach flu, not to mention that my hand was on fire. Anywho; don’t want to scare Mom and Becky. Let’s move on to Extreme Cold Weather gear, or ECW.

Phil is modeling an outfit not unlike what we wear now. He has a parka, sunglasses, hat, gaiter/surgical mask (?), snow pants, gauntlet mittens, and boots.

This is how I dress when I’m walking into the wind. When it’s calmish or I’m walking with the wind, my parka is unzipped, and I don’t have the hood up. With wind chills regularly down to -130, you want to cover every single millimeter of skin. That’s why I wear the goggles – to bridge the gap between my hat and my gaiter. Cold eyes aren’t fun. Little ice balls form on your eyelashes, making it hard to see. Not only is your vision blocked, but your eyelids are weighed down too, making it hard to keep your eyes open. I might not look like I have a lot on, but the next picture is everything I have on my person when I go out. It’s 16.25 lbs heavier than my work clothes. Once I put it all on, I can’t wait to get outside, because I immediately begin to overheat.

Let’s break it down from head to toe.
 

This is my parka. It’s full of goose down, and I hear it costs about $400. Winter Polies are given this parka, and everyone on the continent gets a Big Red parka, which is enormous on me and isn’t as warm. I carry 3 packages of toe warmers that I use as hand warmers. They are supposed to last for 6+ hours, but they didn’t have South Pole temperatures in mind when they made the timetable. When you’re outside they last for about 30 minutes. I also carry a Ziploc bag of nitrile gloves. I’m on the Advanced Trauma Team, and we carry gloves in case we have to run to an emergency and handle bloody patients. It’s always good to have a Sharpie. But don’t freeze them or they might bleed on you when they warm up again. I started carrying a flashlight this week, mainly because a wide-tracked vehicle scared the poo out of me during a storm. I was pretty far ahead of it, and it turned in a different direction. But if it had been going my way; I don’t know if it would have seen me. I carry a pencil because pens freeze. I have a toothbrush to brush the snow off of metal railings. When I do my observations, I wipe and toothbrush off a stretch of railing when I first get up on the roof. I do my observation and then get my flashlight out. If ice crystals or snow grains are falling, I’ll be able to see it on the railing or falling in the flashlight’s beam. And that’s my radio that I notoriously do not carry when I’m in the Station.

This is my South Pole zip-up hoodie. (Dad, this is the one I’m getting you.) There’s my hat, goggles (with a clear lens for winter and tinted lens for summer), and gaiter. I brought a balaclava (aka baklava), but it freezes my face. I wear two sets of glove liners. And those are the giant mittens my mom sent me. We still have the gauntlet mittens available if we want them. In fact they smell like they could be the same ones Phil wore back then. I don’t need hand-warmers if I’m going to be out for 20 minutes or less. Sometimes you have to take a mitten off, but the glove liners aren’t enough protection to keep you warm. Hands get cold VERY fast.

These are my Carhartt overalls that I wear “overall” of my work clothes. They are why I don’t need to wear long underwear. They block the wind quite well. I generally carry two tufts of toilet paper with me for emergency nose blowing. The little book is called a Green Brain. The cold affects your thinking, memory, and reasoning, so it helps to write things down in your brain. When you do stupid things that are out of character, it’s called “getting toasty.” One’s level of toastiness gets progressively worse throughout the winter. And of course, chap stick.

And these are my FDX boots, aka blue boots. I don’t know what FDX stands for, but they are a lot lighter than bunny boots. I have three liners in each boot. I wear thick gray wool socks, then put on the slipper, and then put my boot on. This boot offers no ankle support, which is why some people prefer bunny boots. But I think they are quite a bit more comfortable. Bunny boots are heavy and bruised my shins every time I wore them.
So that’s my info on ECW.

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