12/13 Altitude Training

Today's highlight - altitude training. Since we will be going to the South Pole and a field camp where we might experience altitude sickness, we learned what the symptoms are like and how to treat them. The South Pole is approx. 10000 ft (3000 m) above the sea level and the field camp where we will work for a couple of days is about 12000 ft (3700 m). However, because of the cold air in Antarctica, pressure altitude is higher than that. We learned how to use Gamov Bag which is a pressure bag large enough to have one person inside so that the pressure inside can increase as much as you would feel at an altitude of 1500 m to treat severe cases of altitude sickness.