The Nearly Fatal Snow Caving Trip
Sharp pains shooting through muscles, trying to avoid sleep, hypothermia set in on an Antarctic ice crevasse researcher. I had the opportunity to go snow caving with my brother, Josh. I was confident in my winter backcountry skills and anticipated a memorable trip. I did not know what I was getting into.
Growing colder day-by-day, winter became more dominant. Deep snow made travel difficult. To navigate through this terrain, I would have to wear special equipment. There are a few ways to travel over snow: snowmobiles, cross-country skis, and snowshoes. The uneven terrain and fresh powder called for snowshoes. Along with shoes, winter camping requires many other types of gear.
To cope with the cold, I had to pack bulky warm clothing, and sleeping gear. The Campin' Gaz lantern and stove, both blue and oddly shaped, were necessary for a cold night without a fire. Large, stiff, blue tarps were needed to repel the wet snow while heavy, green foldable shovels comprised the majority of the weight in my pack. The down filled, sleeping bag received much of the attention of my pack's available space. A Kelty 5400 cubic inch Red Cloud swelled with these items, impatient to be worn.
With our gear ready, we boarded our transportation, a brown, earth-colored Subaru wagon, was the car of choice. The packs filled the little space of the hatchback. Through the neighboring towns, we made our way to the top of the mesa. After we reached our chosen parking area, we stepped out of the brown machine quickly realizing that we needed to put the rest of our clothes on. After only a moment to acclimate, we prepared our gear.
Hurling Kelty over my back, I balanced to put on my orange, plastic, snowshoes. Al...
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... to be inside this precarious place, I was careful with every movement. As we both lay in our bags, the cave's darkness soon soothed our eyes and sleep came to our tired bodies. Striking camp early in the morning we traversed over the white, moon lit landscape. We arrived at the car for a late lunch, which ended our camping trip.
Thanks to my knowledge of winter backcountry, and my brother, I made it back alive. Now I realize more possibilities and consequences before I am doing dangerous things. Even with all the knowledge and experience, nature can still prevail. Luckily, this was not the case this time. I am extremely thankful for my brother, and he is thankful to still have a brother. I am continually learning new knowledge and skills and am still humbled by this experience. I hoped that this would be a memorable trip, but it turned out to be life changing.
Haiti began as the French colony Saint-Domingue. The island was filled with plantations and slaves to work on them. Almost a decade and a half after its settlement, this colony paved the way for many changes throughout the French empire and many other slave nations. Through its difficult struggle, we examine whether the slave revolt of Saint-Domingue that began in the late 16th century was justifiable and whether its result of creating the free nation of Haiti was a success.
As they closer and closer to the North Pole the men we getting tired but something in Plaisted made every man want to keep going. On there trip the men had to overcome wind speeds up to 60 mph and cracks in the ice up to 4 ft wide. Then one day in may of 1967 the wind and cracked ice was just to much to overcome and the men had to turn back, Although the next year with careful planning and no fear Plaisted took off on this expedition again. As Kuralt stayed back in Cedar Rapids, IA over the radio to Plaisted he asked. “ Where is you location?” and Plaisted reported back, “ Ninety degrees north!”
The island of Saint-Domingue was made up of a mixture of people including whites from France, creoles, free people of color, and slaves. Once sugar became a major cash crop on the island, an estimated half-million African slaves were brought in to work the land. These slaves outnumbered their white masters more than ten to one and made up the majority of the island inhabitants. Even so, the island had the most secure slave regime in the Caribbean because of the cooperation between masters and free men of color. Due to the difficult policing jobs given to the freed men with little reward, the communication between them and the white masters broke down. Now that the white slaveholders were on their own, it was only a matter of time before their brutal treatment of slaves would lead to an uprising. Once enslaved Africans received word of the revolution in France they too began demanding freedom. After years of civil unrest and vicious fighting, Haiti declared its freedom from France in January of 1804. What makes the Haitian Revolution more radical than the two before it is the fact that it was led by slaves. Throughout the previous revolutions, the main goal was for white men, essentially, to be free from oppressive government rule. There were few thoughts regarding the rights of slaves, even though they too were men. The fact that this group of people were able to remove the colonial authority and establish their own country during this period of time was particularly radical and unheard
Sporre, Dennis J. The Creative Impulse: An Introduction to the Arts. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996. 310-378.
What would you do if you were going on a journey to a new world during winter, and you didn’t know how to get food or shelter? In 1921 a group of 132 people set off on a voyage on the Mayflower to find a better life and religious freedom. Before they could start their better life they had to find food and make shelter. The pilgrims stayed on their boat for most of the winter to get away from the snow, sleet, and high winds. When the pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians became friends and made a peace treaty,later Squanto helped them find food and shelter.
Haiti, previously known as Saint-Domingue, was a slave island and one of the wealthiest of France’s colonies. Up until this point in time, slavery was still common and, as mentioned above, continued throughout the world even after such freedom declarations such as, the Declaration of Independence in the newly formed United States, and the Declaration of Rights of Man in the Republic of France. The Haitian Revolution was brought on by the want for liberation of slaves, and was largely inspired by the French Revolution and the Declaration of Rights of Man. “Even though the early leaders of the French Revolution had no intention of exporting the upheaval, it spread to the colonies, especially to Saint-Domingue” (Ott 1973). This revolution proved to be a major event as it was the most successful slave revolution in history. The slavery population in Haiti, vastly outnumbered the white colonists in Haiti, and therefore, when the slave population banded together, led to a full-scaled rebellion. Revolts would continue to occur until finally in 1793, the slaves got their freedom, with slavery officially being abolished in all French territories in 1794. From this point until 1802, small rebellions continued to occur as not much changed in the daily lives of slaves, despite technically having their freedom. After the French Revolution and with Napoleon taking power in 1799; Napoleon reinstated slavery in all French colonies, including Haiti. Napoleon also sent an army to Haiti to enforce these new slavery laws and Haiti returned to a slave economy in 1802 (Doyle 1943). The Haitian Revolutionaries finally get their win after defeating the French soldiers in the Battle of Vertieres in 1803; the final part of the revolution. The revolution officially ended in 1804, with Haiti gaining its independence from France and permanently abolishing slavery
The revolution of almost 100,000 slaves in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) from 1797 to 1804 was the biggest revolution in the history of slavery. The Haitian Revolution led to the formation of the first ever victorious independent liberated slave state in the world, an idea that rocked the economic, socio-political, and moral basics of the Caribbean. In 1791, slaves and the free people of color (gens de couleur libres) revolted against French ruling, and by 1804 declared the country’s self-rule under new Arawak name of Haiti. Haitian Revolution together with the American Revolution was one of the dramatic and most important challenges faced by European colonialism from the New World, and it is widely regarded as a landmark in the history of Africans in Americans. One must highlight the struggles which had been happening for years before the outbreak of the 1791 full-scale revolution. Yet, the French Revolution was significant, for the divergences between whites on what precisely its legacies meant prompted a chance for Blacks. While the legacies of the French Revolution were lasting, it is clear that the Haitian Revolution greatly affected French Revolution legacies, especially on the Declaration of Rights of Man.
During their western voyage, the group notoriously known as the “Donner Party” inevitably became trapped in a snowstorm in the winter of 1846 and 1847. Originally, the group set out for California in search of new opportunities. Figure 1 shows the path that the party followed to arrive in their set destination. After departing from Springfield, Illinois, the Donner’s first stop was in Independence, Missouri where they joined the rest of their traveling companions. The party had then planned on arriving at Fort Bridger to join another expedition, but they were too late and the expedition left without them (Johnson, 1). They left from Fort Bridger on July 31, 1846 using their own navigation skills in hopes of landing at their destination (Diamond, 2). When an unfortunate snowstorm hit, the group was left stranded. To make matters worse, they were split up between Truckee Lake and Alder Creek. They struggled during this time for they had few supplies and a limited food source. Of the 81 person party, only 45 survived the horrendous conditions (Johnson, 1). That number of casualties may seem fairly typical based on the condit...
With the onset of the winter season approaching, a series of inventory checks were taken on the provisions we had packed along our voyage, as well as the first settlements were under construction the next day. Notably enough, we were severely limited in terms of food, so strict rules of rationing were enforced until next spring,
January 12, 1888, a blizzard covered the northwest part of North America that claimed many lives. This blizzard was considered to be the worst blizzard of all time, and was dubbed the “the Schoolchildren’s Blizzard”, for claiming the lives of so many school children on their way home. The death toll of this murderous blizzard rose, because of lack of preparation and being uninformed. During this time, many farmers and families were unprepared to survive a blizzard of this magnitude, by the lack of clothing they wore. Forecasters were not as accurate enough to inform people on the weather conditions. Also, shelter was a major factor in protecting themselves from the winter storms, but the shelter was not stable
of men who had lost their lives in their effort to reach it [North Pole], I felt
The late 18th century and early 19th century was a prominent time period in which the French Revolution and Haitian revolution occurred. Both revolutions were connected to each other such that they shared similar causes and consequences. Together, France and Haiti were angered by the inequality and unfair privileges that continued to appear in their societies. At the same time, they were inspired and hopeful of bringing the Enlightenment ideas into reality. Although they were able to accomplish most of what they fought for, such as the abolition of slavery, they still took part in bloody revolutions. However, one of the greatest differences in their outcomes was that France emerged as a new, firm government as Haiti staggered with its new independence.
The unidentified man in the short story has a lot perseverance and determination to reach his final destination, which are two qualities found in heroes. In the exposition of the story, it is known that he steps away from the main trail and wanders off in the Yukon to meet the other miners on a fork of Henderson creek. On his nine-hour walk in the brutal weather, he hopes to find logs in the springs from the islands. The man is a chechaquo, which means that he is a new-comer to the land and does not know what to expect because it is his first winter. During his trip, he is well aware that it is cold out, but he underestimates the weather and does not think much of it. In the short story, the narrator states, “But all of this – the mysterious, far-reaching hair-line trail, the absence of the sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, the strangeness and the weirdness of it all – made no impression on the man” (Kass, et al. 68). No matter what the conditions were, the man did not let it distract him and he decided to persist through it all. A hero will take any situation and work with it, all of t...
The entire time I was in awe of the breathtaking photographs and videos captured by James Balog and the rest of the EIS team, and I often found myself pausing the film at different points to marvel at the beauty of these winter wonderlands, only to be greatly disheartened upon watching huge pieces of them plummet to the ocean only minutes later. Michael, on the other hand, explained how he found himself taken aback by James Balog’s resilience and determination to see his mission through to the end, despite multiple surgeries and protests from his doctors in regards to him hiking in such extreme conditions. I felt a great sadness in telling my boyfriend that if human behavior does not change dramatically over the next few decades, I would like to see some of these landscapes together with him in person before the irreversible damage is entirely
Digging into the snow with my boots while stabilizing my body with the uninjured arm, I inch across the hill, lose my foothold, and plummet downward.