Of course, I wanted to know what "FSTP Snow School" was, but garbage blogspam gives first-search-results like this: https://mapcarta.com/N8759058406

<sigh>

I can help! I went through it 7 times.

FSTP, prounounced "F-stop" like the camera setting, was the "field safety training program" and basically it refers to the group of mountaineers that the US Antarctic Program's contractor hires to live in Antarctica and help out with fieldwork. It also refers to the classes that they teach in McMurdo.

Basic FSTP "snow school" used to be required for everyone at McMurdo, and for many, it was the most fun thing you would get to do the whole season. You would learn to set up camp, cook, use radios, sleep out on the sea ice for one night (in a tent, igloo, snow trench, depending on the year and instructors).

I did a bunch of other FSTP-organized courses too, including how to travel on sea ice, and some mountaineering.

We had FSTP mountaineers with us up on Erebus and the joke was "the F stops here."

I think it got renamed to something else in 2017 or so... around when the BFC stopped referring to themselves as the building fulla chicks...

I think this is called ‘happy camper’ and there is a light version where you just learn basics so you can go travel off station.

Right. So when I first went (2010-11), everybody going to mcmurdo had to sleep out on sea ice one night (and it was called "happy camper" or "snow school"). They gradually scaled back the program; added lesser versions and made it so your group had to request it. Maybe meanings of "snow school" and "happy camper" diverged at some point.

Correction: I just checked and my first trip was actually 2009-10

Huh, thanks! That sounds really fun.

It feels strange watching the roads cross onto what looks at first glance to be water.

The other weird thing is seeing the map as a Mercator projection, since Antarctica is usually displayed in a polar projection.