The class goes like this:

You meet everyone in class and the instructor puts you in the Haaglund. Then he takes off really fast and jars your body as he drives through town. The noise inside the Haaglund is incredibly loud. You are given ear plugs before you get in. As we go out of town and onto the sea ice, we drive over some cracks. Everyone gets out and looks at the crack. The instructor takes a shovel out and digs down through the snow until there is nothing but ice on the ground beneath. When you look down, you see a stair case going downward, until it reaches another staircase going upwards. These steps are the cracks re-heeling. You have a crack, then the shift and then you have an opening. The water that comes up through the crack, then freezes again, this time at a lower level. This all happens again and again and again. This becomes really dangerous for traffic over the sea ice. Where you have these stairs or multiple cracks, the ice becomes thin. So you use a drill. You drill down through the ice until you reach water and measure the thickness of the ice. The crack can be no larger than 1/3 the track length of your vehicle. Most of the vehicles that travel on the sea ice have tracks, like tank tracks.

This is a picture of the Aquatic Swiss made vehicle used here to go out on the sea ice. It is called a Haaglund.

Another look at the Haaglund from the back as we're out on the sea ice.

A look back at McMurdo from the sea ice. By the way, the planes land on the sea ice now until it becomes too thin. Its about 2 meters thick now. Later in December, the Ice will be to weak for the planes to land on. Then the airstrip is moved out to Willy Field where the TopHat lab is. I think the sea ice is used as a runway for the airplanes now because its a lot closer to McMurdo than Willy Field is.

Two more looks at McMurdo from the sea ice.

Erebus on a clear day on the sea ice.

View from the instructors hut out on the sea ice.

We learned all that stuff, how to anchor a tent on the ice and how to survive out on the sea ice.

I also was talking to this guy here (at McMurdo). He said that an ice breaker will come in around December and crack the sea ice. Then ships can come in with cargo and take waste out. All the waste here is shipped back to Washington state, USA. They recycle 70% of what is brought down here for use. I learned this in the waste management training class I had to take.

Also they break the sea ice up because you want new fresh ice for the planes to land on each year. The old ice cracks and gets bumpy.

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