ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 6, 1996 TAG: 9603060027
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KRISTEN KAMMERER STAFF WRITER
Ernst "Kass" Kastning cannot get used to sunsets. Or sneakers. Even the familiar sounds of everyday life seem unsettling. He is accustomed to 24-hour daylight, heavy boots and the eerie creaking of glaciers.
Chosen by the Boy Scouts of America to participate in its Antarctic Scientific Program, the 20-year-old Eagle Scout and Radford High School graduate recently returned from the world's coldest continent. There, he spent three months helping with research projects that included tagging seals, climbing an icy volcano and trekking to the South Pole.
Kastning learned last April that he had been chosen from a field of 153 scouts to spend October through January in Antarctica. The news, he remembers, "took a long time to sink in. For the next few months, every time I saw a movie or a book on Antarctica, I'd think, 'I can't believe I'm going to be there!'"
Co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Boy Scouts' Antarctic Program provides young American scientists with the opportunity to visit the frozen continent and experience the rigors of scientific research.
The program originated in 1928 when Admiral Richard Byrd requested an able-bodied Boy Scout to accompany him and his team to the then-unexplored continent. To continue that tradition, the BSA selects an Eagle Scout every three years to assist science teams with their research there.
Applicants must be between the ages of 17 and 21. This was the last year Kastning was eligible.
"I'd known about the program for nearly 10 years. ... I just never really thought I'd do it. But when I realized this was my last chance, I wanted to try," he said.
This is not the first time Kastning has earned recognition for his proficiency in science. While at Radford High School, he was chosen as a finalist in the prestigious Westinghouse Science Talent Search. Since then, he has won the Naval National Science Award Competition, published several articles and papers on issues related to cave and sinkhole preservation, and written a children's brochure promoting speleology, the study of caves. Currently, he's a junior studying Integrated Science and Technology at James Madison University.
According to Clay Perschall, a spokesman for the Boy Scouts, it was Kastning's strong foundation in mathematics, engineering and geology that put him ahead of the other candidates and eventually on a plane to McMurdo Station, Antarctica.
Kastning remembers stepping out of the plane and seeing his new home for the first time. "It was nothing like what I expected. We were standing on an ice sheet and the temperature was so cold. Then a storm moved in and all you could see was white everywhere."
Established in 1956, McMurdo, fondly called "McMudhole" by its inhabitants, is Antarctica's largest research community with a transient population of approximately 1,000. "It looks like a small mining town," Kastning recalls. "There are metal buildings, dirt roads, bulldozers, generators, pickup trucks and stuff like that. The only difference is that [the town] is surrounded by rock and ice."
Kastning, however, was surprised by how much the "downtown" area had to offer. Besides state-of-the-art science facilities, McMurdo boasts a gymnasium, a bowling alley, a cafeteria, a library, three Navy-operated clubs, a swimming pool, a barber shop and a general store.
Food is served cafeteria-style and the living quarters are like dorm rooms.
After a week of introductions and a surprisingly small amount of survival training, Kastning was linked with project groups and accompanied them to the far reaches of the continent.
Using McMurdo as a home base, the groups flew to their sites via prop plane or helicopter. From this bird's-eye view, Kastning got a look at many of Antarctica's indigenous creatures including seals, penguins and a pod of killer whales splashing in the frigid waters off the coast.
When the researchers arrived at their site, they immediately set up camp. "You'd have to run around a lot in these really stiff 'bunny boots,'" Kastning recalls. "And wear lots of layers ... even to go to the bathroom." Out in the field, shelter ranged from heavy-duty mountaineering tents to "fish huts," 15 feet by 18 feet plywood boxes that provided some relief from Antarctica's winds.
"At night we'd play cards and read," he said. He met Americans, Australians, Russians and New Zealanders.
Amazingly, he also met a fellow Radford High School alumnus, John Joseph, who was stationed "at the bottom of the world" working on communications and weather observation for the Navy.
Of the several projects Kastning participated in, his favorite was working with the Weddell seals. As part of a 30-year population study, his group's mission was to tag and count baby seals.
"When we approached the seal camps, you could hear them bawling from both above and beneath the ice," Kastning recalls, enthusiasm evident in his usually even-keeled voice.
Catching the baby seals proved easy. "Usually they'd just sit there and you could walk up and hold them while someone tagged its ear ... but you had to be careful not to upset the [pup's] mother."
Tagging adult seals proved more difficult. To do this someone would throw a bag over the seal's head and, encouraged by shouts of, 'Ride 'em cowboy!', would jump on the animal's back and hang on tight. "The only thing you could do was hold on and keep its flippers back until someone could get at the ear," Kastning recalls. He quickly adds, "What we were doing didn't hurt the seals. The pain [of the tagging] was similar to what we would feel getting our ears pierced ... and it allows the population to be monitored."
Another favorite project was exploring Mount Erebus, an active volcano. Winding its way up through "weird iridescent blue" ice caves, Kastning's group arrived at the summit to set up seismological and emissions equipment.
"It was huge ... around 200 meters in diameter, I think," he said. "At the bottom you could see the lava lake, the magma, and every once in a while there were flashes of red and orange."
A blizzard came through while Kastning and his group were on the summit and they were snowed in for four days. Unexpected blizzards ambushed Kastning's groups so regularly that it earned him the nickname "The Vortex."
Though Kastning never mentions feeling homesick, his parents, Karen and Ernst, both professors of geology at Radford University, remember receiving some less-than-enthusiastic messages from their son. "We stayed in touch by almost every means possible," Karen Kastning remembers. "Phone, radio, fax, e-mail and regular mail ... I think the hardest time for him was between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was the first time he wasn't home for the holidays."
Another difficult experience for Kastning was trekking to the South Pole to have his picture taken. "Unfortunately, the whole thing became very political," he recalls. Because he was continuing the Boy Scout tradition, it was essential that he have his portrait taken next to the Pole with the Boy Scout flag. Standing in sub-zero temperatures for several hours, Kastning held up different flags and posed for the camera. "I was standing out there, it was minus 30 Celsius, and I'm getting my picture taken!" he says, in disbelief.
Fortunately, after the photo shoot, Kastning had time to spend on his own. Armed with two cameras, he took a total of 2,000 pictures during his trip.
Since his return to the United States, Kastning has "slowly fallen back into things," though he is still shocked to look outside and see darkness.
His travel days, however, are far from over. In recent weeks, he has visited New York, where he answered questions about his trip on the Fox-TV show, "fX," and Richmond, where he and his family received the Thomas Jefferson Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Natural Science Education.
Soon, Kastning will visit the White House, along with a handful of equally accomplished Boy Scouts.
This month and in May, he plans to give slide presentations about his experience. He already has received several requests from area schools and community organizations.
As for future goals, Kastning wants to go to graduate school and to teach. The only problem is, he's not sure which area of science he wants to focus on. He had hoped that the Antarctic experience would help narrow his choices. Instead, it added to his seemingly endless list of possibilities.
"There are so many fields I'm interested in now," he said. "I don't know yet ... I'll just have to see."
LENGTH: Long : 149 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Boy Scouts of America Kass Kastning holds upby CNBRadford Troop 46 flag at the geographic South Pole. color
2. Kastning (right) helps a scientist tag a seal. color
3. & 4. With icy cliffs loom in the distance, Kass Kastning plays
around with the start of an igloo on Antarctica. Kastning weighs a
sample on a balance