from Hacker News

Things no one tells you before an Antarctic expedition (2015)

by montrose on 5/12/18, 10:22 AM with 132 comments

  • by petemir on 5/12/18, 7:08 PM

    I was there for a whole year, in a scientific base of my country. Being a controlled environment, I couldn't relate much with the items, except for

    > 10. Re-entry. > There is often a huge sense of isolation and disconnect when you come back to everyday life. For so long, you have been out in the wilderness and singularly concerned with survival and mileage, so when you get back to the real world and people talk about their jobs, or what they did at the weekend, it all feels foreign. You must remember that people have their own lives and their own interests. Just because you like Antarctica and polar expeditions, it doesn't mean anyone else should give a damn about you or what you did.

    It was hard to come back to the real life...

  • by themodelplumber on 5/12/18, 3:05 PM

    > A normal man burns about 2,500 calories in a day. We burn between 7,000 to 9,000.

    This kind of thing is fascinating to me. It reminds me of the guy [1] who took 64,000 extra calories of olive oil along on his tiny-yacht trip across the Atlantic, because it's so dense in calories. Or the fact that on the day a climber summits Everest, they'll burn around 20,000 calories. That's almost 40 McDonald's Big Macs worth of energy.

    1. http://www.yachtingworld.com/extraordinary-boats/undaunted-t...

  • by forapurpose on 5/12/18, 9:16 PM

    > Middle aged people tend to make better polar explorers. Not so much because they are physically more capable, but more to do with their mental capacity. Out on the high polar plateau there is nothing but endless white stretching off in every direction. You ski for 12 hours a day and because of the wind and cold, it’s almost impossible to talk to your team mates. So, in effect, you are alone in your head for all that time. By being a bit older and having a bit more life experience, it helps fill the blank canvas that is Antarctica.

    I always wonder if the same would apply to soldiers. A former special forces soldier I know said that they didn't look for jocks (though you need some athleticism); they looked for people with the ability to perform as a highly functional team member under extreme stress and exhaustion - sort of like the developer who maintains their sense of humor, keeps everyone loose, and still turns out work to the highest standards after a week of 18 hour days, with a deadline breathing down your necks and an angry boss. It seems to me that older people are generally more capable in that regard.

    > [the butter] tastes revolting, but then your body just craves the fat content and you eat the butter like blocks of cheese.

    He needs a bit of better butter. I highly recommend eating Plugra butter straight, assuming that your heart doesn't need all that blood all the time. Really; go buy some and you will come back and thank me. I can't even imagine how good it would taste in the author's situation.

    (I have no affiliation with Plugra.)

  • by dmvaldman on 5/12/18, 4:46 PM

    > It may seem stupid celebrating traveling 100km when you have 18 times that distance to go, but never underestimate the power of denial.

    I think this quote applies well to entrepreneurship

  • by InitialLastName on 5/12/18, 5:32 PM

    Is anyone else bothered by the unit switching this guy is doing?

    > On the traverse of Antarctica we were trying to cover 1,850km. After the first week, we had only done a few miles total and then had to climb 3,000m onto the high polar plateau.

    That's 3 distance units in two sentences where 1 unit would suffice with almost no changes ("a few miles" is approximately identical to "a few kilometers").

  • by andyidsinga on 5/12/18, 5:26 PM

    not too off topic: I've been reading "The Worst Journey in the World" - fascinating!

    also, to help with the general mood I bought a bottle of this whisky: https://www.whiskyshop.com/shackleton

    cheers!

  • by lolive on 5/13/18, 4:03 PM

    I would highly recommend this blog about surviving in Antartica (and not loosing all your SANity points ;)

    http://sme.wikidot.com

  • by bluedino on 5/12/18, 6:30 PM

    >> We burn between 7,000 to 9,000. That means supplementing your dehydrated food with slabs of butter. In the first few days of the expedition, it tastes revolting, but then your body just craves the fat content and you eat the butter like blocks of cheese.

    I wonder how many sticks they eat a day. 1 stick is around 800 calories. Eating a stick of butter is a popular food challenge video on YouTube, but some guys eat 4 sticks (1lb) without any problem, in just a few minutes.

  • by z3t4 on 5/12/18, 6:26 PM

    -30C is actually not that bad when the air is dry.
  • by wufufufu on 5/12/18, 6:15 PM

    Why not peanut/almond butter instead of butter?
  • by deepGem on 5/13/18, 4:53 AM

    Middle aged people tend to make better polar explorers

    Perhaps for the same reasons they tend to be better entrepreneurs.

  • by fizixer on 5/12/18, 4:54 PM

    Good for that guy but by 'Antarctic expedition' I was expecting something different.

    I'm a lot more interested in going to Antarctica, spend a few months there as part of some scientific research team. Or maybe just go there as a part time low skill worker, so that my whole trip is funded and at the same time I don't have to work more than a few hours a day. I just want the feeling of having lived in Antarctica for a few months. (internet access is a must).

  • by spodek on 5/12/18, 4:18 PM

    > putting in 12-14 hour days of pulling a sled in minus 40C, you have to

    Oddly they include the redundant "C" for -40 but don't include it, or the "F," in the next paragraph:

    > by running outside naked in minus 30 and rubbing yourself down with snow

    Then they restore redundant ones a few paragraphs later:

    > * It may be as low as minus 40C outside* . . . which in minus 40C is quite high