A Playful Search For Beauty: South Pole Igloo

A few weekends ago, my friend Sam came up with a great Sunday afternoon activity - build an igloo! We specifically decided to wing it with out looking up any instructions, just to add to the adventure. That Sunday, we located a shovel, a wood saw, and a snow saw, and headed outside to try our hand at snow-construction.

Finding good snow that could be cut into blocks was not a problem. But the fact that it was -35 degrees F outside meant that blocks did not melt and re-freeze together with handling. We started by building a ring of blocks ~8 feet in diameter. After several hours we had a wall which was shoulder-high, but was not closing over the roof fast enough. The solution; build a central pillar to support the roof in the middle. It may be unconventional, but it worked well! Now we had a 2-room igloo.

After 5.5 hours, we finally placed the last block in the ceiling. Unfortunately, this was just a bit too long, and we missed dinner. We melted our frozen beards in hot tea and soothed our tired backs with plates mounded high with left-over chicken and beans.

The next weekend, I came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to sleep in the igloo. After talking to the winter station manager, I located a couple of sleeping pads and two -40 deg sleeping bags. Nobody else was foolish enough to go with me, so I trudged out of the warm station at 10pm on Friday night in the 24-hour sunlight with a gigantic duffle bag, and set up for the night. I put one sleeping bag inside of the other, and set down the two ridge-rest sleeping pads. I was not super tired so I read a book for some time; however my hands kept getting cold and eventually I gave up and put the book away to go to sleep. The sun does not set until March, so the igloo maintained a cool blue color throughout the night, never getting anywhere close to dark. None-the-less, I slept in 2 hour blocks through most of the night. At 6:30am my feet started to get cold, and by 7:30 I was ready to get a move on. I suited up, stuffed the sleeping bags and pads into the duffle, and headed into the station.

Ahhh, the warm station, hot breakfast, steaming cups of HOT-chocolate... luxury! The thermometer read -47 deg F. If I were still in boy scouts, I would be 79% of the way towards the "100-degrees of frost" badge! Sleeping out in the cold meant that I actually got up in time for breakfast, literally the only time I managed this feat the entire time at pole.