Nuuksio cliffs teach survival skills on the polar glaciers

South Pole expedition prepares for November trip to the Antarctic summer

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By Heli Saavalainen
     
      Mountain guide Petter Reuter makes loops in a climbing rope at an even spacing - six man-lengths apart.
      "The longer the gaps between climbers, the safer the rope is. The danger of someone falling into a crevasse and pulling others in along with him is reduced", Reuter explains to the group of men under his tutelage as they stand at the top of a rock cliff.
      The cliffs at the Nuuksio National Park, not far from Helsinki, have been called into service to double as Antarctic crevasses and nunataks (nunantak, for the uninitiated, is an Inuit word for a small mountain, rocky crag, or outcrop that projects from a glacier, ice shelf, or snowfield), as the 2004 Finnish Antarctic Expedition hones up its survival skills. .
     
"The rope has to hold together. There is nothing more infuriating than having to deal with a frayed or tangled rope in cold conditions", Reuter warns.
      The Finnish expedition is preparing itself for its research season, which will start in late November or early December. The researchers and others heading to the end of the world are being prepped to survive in the hostile and demanding conditions of the southern continent.
      In the course of a week's training, the members have revised their skills in such things as using emergency packs, erecting Scott-tents, firing distress flares, first aid and paramedic work, and GPS navigation.
      On Friday it was the turn of safety on glaciers. Hence the roping up and the ascents and descents of sheer cliffs on the end of a rope. The cliffs and gullies of Nuuksio are a popular place for rock-climbers, and for ice-climbers in the winter months.
     
Good climbing gear is part of the necessary equipment inventory for all members of the team. "It is always used on snow-covered areas where there are known to be crevasses", explains the team's leader Mika Kalakoski, from the Finnish Institute of Marine Research.
     
The members of the expedition will also require psychological survival skills, since two months in a tent or in a cramped hut can be a nerve-wracking experience if homesickness sets in. The training course is the team's last get-together before they congregate to set off on November 22nd.
      For Kalakoski, this will be his sixth trip. Engineer Pentti Sipola and Finnish Meteorological Institute planner Antti Samuli are both Antarctic rookies. Both are looking forward eagerly to the experience.
      "This is a completely voluntary thing, and I'm sure everyone is of the same mind", says Sipola, who retired from the Finnish Frontier Guard this summer. His task will be to take care of the electricity supply to the Finnish base, some 130 kilometres from the shore of the Weddell Sea. Antti Samuli will be servicing the weather observation station at the site.
      Helsinki University researcher Olli-Pekka Mattila is making his second visit to study snow under the world's most ideal conditions. He will be investigating the melting of the surface snow-cover.
     
The roughly 14,500-kilometre journey will begin conventionally by air to Cape Town. They will then cross the Southern Ocean aboard a Russian research vessel, and the last leg to the Finnish research station Aboa, located in Queen Maud Land, will require a helicopter ride.
      The intention is for the team to be in place around Independence Day, or December 6th.
      The majority of the members will head back home in early February. At that point, electrician Petteri Järmälä will be flown in to join the four stay-behinds, who will put the place into shape for the Antarctic winter before they all leave.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 23.10.2004

More on this subject:
 BACKGROUND: Studying snow, ice, and climate change since 1988

Links:
  Finnish Institute of Marine Research: Antarctica
  Nuuksio National Park

HELI SAAVALAINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
heli.saavalainen@hs.fi