Clothing Distribution

Today I was at what is known as "CDC". No, not Center for Disease Control, but Clothing Distribution Center. This is where we get our Extreme Cold Weather gear, including the famous red parka you see in photos. It is located next to the CHC airport, next to the International Antarctic Center. It is also next to the terminal where I will be taking off from tomorrow to fly to McMurdo.

Once we go there, we got checked out by the nurse. She went over our records briefly, made sure that we had our seasonal flu vaccination, then took our temperature to make sure we're not sick (including H1N1). Then she discussed different options for altitude acclimatization (diamox, decadron, or nothing. In the past they also used to offer Ginko). Then we had some orientation speech and a video, and we were off to try out our ECW gear.

There are a couple of big carpeted room, one for men and and one for women. In it were two orange duffle bags full of gear for each of us. There were only three women today, so we had plenty of room to spread out. The point is to try out everything to make sure they all fit and are comfortable, and swap out anything that doesn't fit. Each bag is customized for us for size and the types of jobs we will be performing in Antarctica.

One of the other women is going to McMurdo to pack up some gear from an experiment and she will probably be there for 2-3 weeks. The other one is an engineer in operations. She will first go to McMurdo for a few days, then to South Pole after.

Here is what was in my bag: Big giant red parka, thin red windbreaker that looks just like the big giant red parka, snow pants (bib), pair of giant white boots (nicknamed "bunny boots") that I exchanged for big black boots which I didn't like and exchanged for blue "FDX" boots, two pairs of thick wool tube socks, two pairs of leather work gloves with some insulation, a pair of wool mittens, a pair of leather mittens, a set of long underwear, a set of fleece underwear, fleece jacket, balaclava, fleece hat, ski goggles, neck gator, another pair of fleece pants. Did I forget anything? Anyway, you can see in the photos all the stuff they packed for me. The red parka is a name tag with our names on it. I was tickled to see "Dr." in front of mine: hardly anyone ever calls physicists that.

Everyone I talked to said getting boots that fit is one of the best ways to make your life comfortable at the Pole. Hence the multiple swapping.

So, here we are. I have my gear. Now I'm all set to go.