Dr. Matt Nolan
Institute of Northern Engineering
University of Alaska Fairbanks
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Dr. Matt Nolan
Institute of Northern Engineering |
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McCall Glacier and Hulahula River -- August 2011 Photo credits: The photos seen here were taken by John, Ken, Greta, Michael, Matt Khosh, Jason, Chris, Turner, and I. To figure out who took what, right click on the image, hit 'save picture as', and the author's name will be part of the filename (except for my photos). Then hit cancel or save. Movie credits: All of the movies embedded here were taken by me. You have to download them completely to view, and some are quite large, as they are full HD.
04 August 11 McCall Glacier Whew! This trip is a busy and complicated one. It started with severa days of gaging water discharge on the Jago River, followed by a 10 day glacier trip, and ending with a 10 day float trip on the Hulahula River with 15 people studying the impact of shrinking glaciers on ecology. Right now we're on the glacier, but I'll try to recap what it took to get here. I had been planning the float trip for almost a year. The general idea was to bring together a selection of scientists to study and discuss a question that can only to be answered by a multi-disciplinary group, namely "How will the loss of glaciers in this area affect the downstream ecology?" Here we're thinking about fish, birds, shrubs, and near-shore marine food webs. For example, these glaciated watersheds, like the Jago and Hulahula, form deltas at the ocean that are much siltier and more freshwater than deltas elsewhere in Arctic Alaska that are not glacier-fed. These siltier, freshwatery deltas support a different population of invertebrates, mostly the larva-stage of flying bugs. The tens of thousands of migratory shore-birds that descend on the Arctic each spring apparently prefer these invertebrates to the ones on sandy, saltier deltas, and they make them grow fatter faster, which is something they desire before their flight home. When the glaciers disappear, they will no longer supply the silt or freshwater to those deltas, which will presumably become more like the sandier deltas nearby. How this will affect the birds is unclear, but that's what we'd like to understand better. There are similar stories for the fish, shrubs, and near-shore food webs. I had a couple of options in addressing this question from these different angles. The standard approach is to invite everyone to a meeting in a hotel conference room near a convenient airport. Another would be to invite everyone on a float trip through the study area, where we could actually study the problem and teach each other what we do for a living why anyone else should care. I chose the latter. So all of this is to say that the past few months had been busy with coordination for that trip, and the week before we left was especially busy. The planned start of the float was August 13. Before that, 7 of us would be on McCall Glacier, and not really sure whether we would be flying off the glacier or hiking out. Four would be driving up from Fairbanks to Happy Valley. Three would be flying into Deadhorse, in two groups. And one would be working somewhere in the area with his own helicopter. Besides these 15 people, 5 boats and 10 days of food needed to be organized, as well as a means to take all of these people and gear from a sandbar in the Arctic Ocean back to civilization. Complicating all of this was our own personal planning for 2 trips immediately before this one. First was gaging water discharge of the Jago River and next was the glacier trip. So not only was I going to be out of touch the two weeks before the remote, complicated float trip I was leading, but I also had to organize these two trips and their logistics and science.
In any case, we left Fairbanks on Wednesday July 27, Kristin and I driving both of our cars and taking Greta Burkart with us. The drive up to Happy Valley was relatively uneventful, leaving about 2PM and arriving about 11:30PM. When we got there, a plane and truck were parked where we expected, but no one was around that we could tell. After making some noise and poking around, we began scoping out places to set up a tent when Andre emerged. He had his head phones on inside one of the buildings, and was just then heading off to sleep, but lined us up with some beds for the night. Fueled up and heading out -- 38MB
We had come up a couple days early just to help out with overall logistics. My big concern was that we were attempting to land fixed-wing aircraft on the glacier ice this year. This was the first time we were trying it, and it was not clear to me that it would work out as well as planned. So by getting to the Jago River early, we would have more opportunity to try it out and more weather windows to work with. Unfortunately, our new logistics provider was not ready to go the next morning; they were suffering from being short a plane and transitioning from Deadhorse to Happy Valley. We filled the time sorting gear, repacking, and lining things up for the upcoming float trip. It was not until after 4PM that the plane and pilot were nominally ready, but it was after 5:30PM before we actually left. In the ideal case, our goal for the day was to get into the Jago, do a round of stream gaging while the next shuttle was happening, then go check out the glacier landing options. By the time the Nolans got dropped off, however, we had lost our weather window and Greta's flight was not able to make it in at all. It was another two days before we saw her due to this screw up, which greatly cut into the science we could have been doing.
Cooking dinner on the tundra --29MB
In the meantime, I had caught a cold in Happy Valley and that next day I was feeling pretty sick. I did manage to gage the river, but it was substantially higher than in June and really at the limits at what I could wade across. That was about all of the energy I could muster for the day, but it was a great feeling to have a high-discharge measurement completed. The idea here is that I have pressure transducers in the water over the summer measuring the height of the river water, but they dont indicate how much water is actually flowing past them. By manually measuring this amount of water by wading across with the flow meter, I can then relate the height of the water to the discharge at that height. Doing this at a variety of heights allows me to create a curve that relates any height to discharge, thus allowing me to convert the continuous pressure transducer data into discharge data. The more discharge measurements I make across the full range of heights recorded, the more accurate the final result. The next step is to understand how much of this river discharge is coming from glacier melt, which we do by recording the turbidity of the water continuously with a data logger, as the turbidity of the water is clearly related to glacier melt. Then when we know how much of the overall discharge is due to glacier melt, we can make some estimates of what the rivers will look like after the glacier disappear.
That night it began to rain, and it didnt stop for another two days. The water level had grown higher in the rain and was beyond what I felt comfortable trying to attempt on my own. It was just as well anyway, as my head cold had grown worse and I wasnt in the best of moods for strenuous work. Greta finally arrived that night about 8PM and began catching up on the work she had hoped to do, so that we could leave for the glacier as soon as possible. Though the weather was good enough for her to fly in, higher up in the mountains it was all cloud, so there was no possibility for checking out the ice. The next day, July 31, there was still an overcast at the mountain level most of the day, so we worked in the river some more, gaging again, collecting water samples, and looking for invertebrates. The work went well, though it was time consuming due to the high water levels and difficulties it caused in getting around and making the measurements. By 7PM I called in and we made a plan to check weather at 6:30AM so that if the weather was good, we could begin glacier shuttles by 9 or 10AM. The issue is that we had at least 3 shuttles to make after I went in first to scope out the best landing spot. Even if it worked, the process of getting everyone and everything to the glacier was going to take 8 hours, and then we still had to make it to our camp spot and set up camp, which was another 3 or 4 hours, so we needed an early start to get to bed at a decent hour and not risk making stupid mistakes due to lack of sleep.
The weather had improved substantially overnight and that morning I called in at 6:30 to say that this seemed to be our day. I called back at 8AM and was told not to expect a plane until 4PM, completely screwing over our day and risking losing our weather window. Then I called the pilot himself, who said he would leave right away. So we packed up and sat at camp thinking a plane would arrive any minute, and were still sitting there 6 hours later when he finally did show up after 4PM, as originally indicated. Perhaps needless to say, I was pretty ticked off, not just about being jerked around and losing a day of work we could have done on the river, but also watching the weather deteriorate throughout the day and losing our opportunity to fly to our next destination, which was now becoming a repeating pattern. At this point, we still didnt know whether landing on the glacier was even possible, so were still planning on hiking in as a backup, but this would totally change the nature of the trip as most of the science gear would have to be left behind. We flew up to check it out anyway, as was clear on the ground, but the glacier was too covered in cloud and fog to attempt a landing. Fortunately the pilot decided to camp with us that night, and that totally changed the logistical dynamics, reduced the uncertainty level, and improved the mood. The build-ups of the day before settled down overnight and by 8:30AM we had loaded the plane with me and my backpack and we were ready to go scope out the next phase of the trip. While the mountains were clear, there was some sort of wierd frontal system moving in at higher altitude and making for some turbulence. As we circled the glacier, I remember thinking what a potentially stupid idea this all was and that it was likely not going to work, causing chaos in our science plans. But we circled around a little and found the spot we had marked out the previous summer and came in to land. Unfortunately this area had changed considerably in character and was much rougher than we had hoped. Fortunately we came to a stop within about 100 feet, without breaking anything, due solely to the skill of the pilot. Well, mostly to a stop, as being on wheels on a sloping ice surface was not entirely stable. So I hopped out and walked over the snow machine not far away to gather up supplies to secure the airplane. The machine started on the second pull, and I brought over wheel chocks and ice screws to anchor the wings. Once secure, we began thinking about how to get the plane off the glacier.
Bob walked the marked out runway while I hunted around for alternate strips. I had scoped this out considerably over the past three years so knew where to look. I found a wide, smooth area at least 1500' long near where the lower cirque joins with the upper glaciers and brought Bob over to inspect. He agreed this was a great location, but the issue was that it was a bit far to taxi from the current aircraft location. So we found a shorter take-off stretch nearby to where he was, and marked out a taxi route to it. He was able to take off without issue, leaving me behind to mark out the new area while he went back for the next load. But at this point it seemed clear that this method of transportation to the glacier was viable, which was a great relief and potentially quite significant for the future of the project.
Taking a break from the weather -- 95MB By the time I gathered up the cones marking prior strips and arranged them as best I could in the new area, which took more than an hour, Bob returned carrying Kristin and Turner. Once Bob left, we set up the megamid on the side of the strip to get out of the wind and rain. By this time it was 1PM, as it took several hours to scope out the new strip and deal with taking off preparations. The weather was deteriorating, but visibility on the glacier was still good, and the wind was variable and downglacier. So basically Bob would line up the top of the runway with the engines running, and I would call him on the Icom during a lull in the wind so he could take off without a downwind push slowing the wind over his wings. We spent a couple hours in the tent waiting for the next load, reading our chapter book out loud and playing games, though we thought it was only going be 30 minutes. After the next load arrived, a gear load, and the plane lifted off, I brought Kristin and Turner up to the base of our camp hill to start working on getting camp set up. With Turner nearly 6 and a nice trail marked from last year, it was a new experience to let him and mama go off on their own without too much worry. It was also nice to have him in great spirits and excited to be back on the glacier. I shuttled a bit more gear and tinkered with the runway markings, as well as gathered up various trash piles that had been building over the past few years so that we could get it off the ice. In summer, things we find on the ice we tend to put in nearby piles, but in winter they are buried in too much snow to remove. The past few years we have been hiking in and using helicopters only briefly so there hasnt been much real opportunity to remove trash. But with this new option of fixed wing support directly to the glacier in summer, we have new options for trash removal and it seemed to be working great. Greta came in on the last load, which was by now 5:30PM. So as predicted, it was an all day affair just getting onto the glacier from 10 miles away. But more importantly, we were now all here with all of our stuff, including food for 10 days for 7 people. In the meantime, Joe, Kate, and Michael had already landed in Deadhorse the day before, August 1, and had spent the day on standby in Happy Valley waiting to come in. By now the weather had deteriorated substantially and I was surprised Greta had made it in. But we made a plan to check weather first thing in the morning and get an early start if possible to get the remaining people in. In the end, it was a tremendous accomplishment to not only pioneer landing here, but spend the entire day shuttling loads in marginal weather, and something I would only trust a few pilots with. The weather the next morning was great, but unfortunately despite calling in at 8AM saying so, I was told that the plane probably wouldnt show up until 4PM again. I have had huge trouble with logistical support for this project over the past 8 years, and was really hoping that that was a thing of the past by paying a premium rate for premium service. So I spent the day watching the weather deteriorate again, and planning to call every air taxi I knew the next morning to get the support I would need for the upcoming float trip, as it was becoming clear that I was going to have to cancel this contract, not due to deficiencies in flying skills but simply overcommitments. It was a frustrating day, as already a couple of days needlessly behind schedule, I had to blow another day doing grunt work both because no one else was available for it and because I couldnt stray far from the strip not knowing when a plane might land and need to be secured. Plus just being grumpy so early in the trip made me even grumpier. Bob arrived about 3:30PM with Michael, and I had a serious talk with him before taking off about my concerns for the future of the project and their involvement with it. We agreed it would be best if Bob based at our camp site on the Hulahula River during the busy days of the 10th-13th when all of the people and gear were being gathered around the north slope, to avoid whatever was causing the delays in getting out to us, which apparently was largely due to having one less aircraft than planned during their busiest time of year. He readily agreed with the idea, so I decided not to pursue alternatives, though I still dont have a warm fuzzy feeling about this working out well. In any case, we were now all safely on the glacier, albeit a bit late, and in great spirits for beginning the next phase of the trip. We enjoyed the traditional first-night mexican meal with margheritas later that night, and went to bed with full stomachs and relieved minds.
Today we went for a tour of the glacier. Joe studies ice cores, and analyzed our core from 2008. This is his first trip to the glacier, to get a sense of the environment and take some samples for auxiliary study. Michael is a post-doc working for Joe and helping out with the project, and Kate is Joe's daughter, an undergraduate in chemistry who has joined him on many expeditions. So the four of us and Greta took off on two snowmachines heading downglacier, getting my schpeels about various glacier processes, instrumentation, former studies, etc. Eventually we made our way down to the terminus, where dug up the old stream camp cache, not utilized since 2008. It had survived reasonably well. We setup the Arctic Oven that was there and inventoried the food and supplies. The general idea is that Greta and Kate will spend a few days at this camp taking water samples and checking out invertebrates along the length of the creek, and eventually hike out to the Jago River doing the same along the way. The river was raging and turbid in the warm summer air, and Joe decided that he would join the women on the hike out, as he explained that he was not allowed to come home without Kate. I had hoped to download dataloggers along the way, but of course there was not enough time. Thoughts of all of the prior expeditions where little delays had propagated into major challenges downstream filled my head. My brain just visualizes these things more clearly than most people I think, which is probably why I'm also able to pack more into an expedition than most, as this visualization of how one small thing now affects things 3 days later let's me plan accordingly. It also leads me to be grumpier. In any case, it was nice seeing such fresh perspectives and enthusiasm on our way down, and I think the time was well spent. We put off going to the upper cirque so that we could still get an early start in the morning, and enjoyed a nice meal before heading to bed, discussing plans for the next few days. The general idea is that Greta and Kate will head down to the stream day after tomorrow, and Joe and Michael will join them for the hike out on the 9th.
09 August 11 McCall Glacier Our work on the glacier is mostly done now, and it is only Kristin, Turner and I left at camp. Our first day of real work on the glacier was August 5th, my birthday. I left early in the morning to the upper cirque, anticipating it would be a sluggish start getting everyone moving. I was able to download most of the thermistor-string dataloggers there by the time the rest of the group showed up, and was pleased to learn that they were all working. Our first group task there was to right the freezer, which had tipped over during the summer. Last May we attempted to dig it out and move it so that it would not get permanently buried, but it was too frozen in. So we left a trench around it, and over the summer this widened into a well, which allowed the freezer to tip. It was remarkably light to move with so many people, and we reset it downglacier by about 5 meters. In retrospect, we probably should have left it in place in May, as I anticipate this is going to be a continual maintenance issue as it is unlikely to get buried again given the current climate.
I continued to work on the other dataloggers, while most of the rest temporarily removed Andy's pollen traps to drain them into sample bottles for analysis. Kate, Turner's new best friend and Nintendo buddy, did most of the work up on the tower, while Joe and Michael decanted the pollen-filled water into the bottles. Greta took samples and measurements in the surface streams there, while Kristin and Turner hiked about and eventually hiked on their own back to camp. Once the pollen was finished, the DRI team took a hike up to the col to enjoy the view, and eventually we all met back at camp after a reasonably full day of successful work. The only tasks remaining in the upper cirque at this point was the mass balance and GPS survey, and hopefully some ice radar.
In the meantime Greta had decided to wait a day before going down the stream camp, so we reorganized schedules a bit. The DRI team spent the morning in the upper cirque working on a snow survey to characterize the size of the current accumulation area. Last winter we did some modeling to determine the age of ice at depth within our core, and this modeling showed that this depth-age relationship was sensitive to the accumulation rate above the core site. Because the ice gets steep here, the accumulation rate varies quite a bit, so we decided to investigate this a bit more by direct measurement. I spent the morning prepping equipment, like the GPS and some weather dataloggers, and reviewing older field notes to plan some process studies. The weather was marginal, with cloud and fog obscuring the glacier surface quite often. Greta worked on the stream below camp, finding all kinds of bugs on the rocks and water there. In the afternoon I headed out to the lower cirque to try to revive our deep thermistor string there, but with no luck. I downloaded some other loggers in the area and considered heading down to the lower glacier, but it was already getting late in the day and the fog still hadnt fully cleared, so by dinner time we were all back in camp and discussing plans for the next few days. The plan for this day was to move Greta and Kate down to the stream camp. Joe and Michael would sample for black carbon on the way back, and I would make our GPS and mass balance measurements on the lower glacier, as well as download loggers there and at the stream, so that we would all be working more or less in the same area. I headed out first, again trying not to get sucked into the inevitable morning delays trying to get so many people organized. It was a nice day, but with a thick overcast and cool air temperatures, so great for datalogger downloading. The GPS was working fine, and I was able to survey everything down to the main weather station by the time the rest of the crew arrived. We headed down to the terminus, surveying along the way. The satellites were holding out, and I was very glad to survey all the way to the actual terminus without any loss of position fix. The old frustrations of propagating delays kept cropping up as I struggled to hurry, but in the end downloading the loggers at the stream took longer than I would have liked, and between that and some camp chores, it was after 3PM before I was able to get back on the ice. Due to some bug in the base receiver, it shuts off at 4PM, so I was basically done with GPS for the day. Fortunately Joe and Michael dealt with the pollen trap there, which saved me a lot of time, and I spent the rest of the after and early evening finishing up with all of the dataloggers on the lower glacier, wrapping up about 7PM. So it wasnt as successful as I would have liked, but I was now finished with weather stations and done on the lower glacier, so it was a nice thought to end the day with.
The plan for yesterday was to finish up the mass balance and GPS in the morning, then meet up with Joe and Michael to do some radar in the upper cirque. The weather was marginal, with snow squalls moving through regularly. We got a reasonably early start, and I was finished with all of the poles below the upper cirque by about 11AM. But then I realized that I had forgotten the snow probe for the upper cirque and headed back up to camp. Kristin was preparing a hot lunch for everyone, which I was hoping to eat after finishing in the upper cirque, but I decided to stay and wait for Joe and Michael who were decanting the last pollen trap in the lower cirque. I had got a cold at the start of the trip which I still hadnt been able to shake, and I had been looking forward to finishing up everything the day before so that I could sleep in. But my fatigue was accumulating, and it was after 2PM by the time we left camp and I was feeling pretty miserable. Of course this is the time when most things go wrong. First the pull rope on the black snow machine broke. Then it started snowing heavily. By the time we got to the poles, it was after 3PM, and I had only a short time to finish the GPS before the receiver shut off at 4PM, and I was determined to be finished with all of the science on this day, both so that I could sleep for the next several days and also so that while it was just the Nolans here with only one snowmachine that we wouldnt have to go anywhere and risk getting the second machine stuck and unavailable to assist with our pullout. So I scrambled to survey all of the poles before 4PM, which worked just in time. Joe and Michael dug snow pits at our firn coring sites while I did that and then went back to each of the poles to measure their mass balance. The mass balance measurements here are always kind of a mess for a variety of natural reasons, so I compare my current measurements to the previous years' measurements I have on a cheat sheet, to try to catch any errors caused by writing down the wrong numbers etc. It continued to snow on and off throughout the afternoon, and with my head and guts swimming, I was glad to finish it all up. The last task before going up to camp was getting the snowmachine down the hill. This worked reasonably well since it was mainly just a matter of coasting and braking downhill, but of course a small blizzard cropped up just at the moment of truth, so it was mostly done by feel.
Kristin had prepared another nice mexican meal for that night, but I wasnt able enjoy it much. We continued our many discussions of science of the past few days, and this distracted me for a few hours before I passed out in bed. Joe and Michael sorted gear and packed up in the evening. They left this morning about 8AM to hike down to the terminus, calling in about 9AM from the last pole where the radios worked saying that they had nearly arrived. I'm still in bed at 10:30AM, writing this. The weather seems to have cleared up considerably, so hopefully the Nolans will have the chance to sort gear and dry out camp without too much stress. ==== It turned out to be one of the most pleasant days I've spent on the glacier. It was the first time just the three of us had spent the day together here in several years. We had a lot to do with inventorying and packing, but the time passed pleasantly and we had time for some games and joking. Kristin dealt with the food, while I dealt with the science gear. By mid-afternoon, we decided to go down to the glacier and sort some gear there and assess the status of the snow machine. The snow machine turned out to be quite the project, but an especially satisfying one as we worked on it together. The problem was that pull-start cord failed to retract. This typically means the coil spring inside broke or somehow jumped off the retaining pins. Fortunately, I had purchased an entire pull-start assembly and stored it in our parts cache for just such an eventuality. Even though its almost always the spring that breaks, buying an entire assembly eliminates the slinky-esque nightmare of dealing with the spring itself, which can be especially problematic in a blizzard. Replacing the entire assembly entails removing about 10 bolts, swapping the piece, and putting the bolts back in. Unfortunately there were two issues. First was that the 'bolts' were screws with star-drive heads, and we had no such tool. Second was the lower most bolt was inaccessible without removing the engine. So, we fashioned a tool to break the bolts loose and pulled out the engine to do it. Once that was accomplished, switching the assembly only took 20-30 minutes, then another 30-45 minutes to button everything back up and make sure we had no extra pieces or missing tools. There was a brief moment of discouragement when I pulled the handle and not only didnt the engine fire up but some wierd electronic noise occurred. The problem was quickly traced to an electrical plug that was dangling out of a power box, and once that was plugged in it fired right up. All day we had been in the clouds. Turner was excited to go into the fog on the glacier, where people get turned inside out, at least in the movies (we watched The Fog on the glacier a few years ago...). So we went for a test drive down glacier into the fog and showed him what it was like to live inside a ping pong ball. We shuttled a little gear around and hunted for more dinosaur (bird) bones, and then made our way back up to camp. By this time it was dinner time, and we had planned pasta and a movie. During dinner, the clouds let loose and we rapidly began accumulating snow. It showed little signs of letting up as we ran from the cook tent into our sleeping tent for bed, where we were treated to another chapter of our book by Kristin. I think the highlight of Turner's evening was when momma went outside to brush the accumulating snow off the tent before sleeping, and we smacked it from the inside just as she was about to brush it from the outside, causing a scream of surprise, at which point Turner howled with laughter and began smacking the snow off the rest of the tent, making it considerably brighter inside, in many ways.
10 August 11 McCall Glacier Today was one of those days I wish I could start again from scratch, changing a few of the parameters outside of my control. Last night, the hiking team failed to call in at the designated 9PM check-in time. I brought the phone into our sleeping tent and plugged it in, leaving it on all night, but no calls woke us up and there were no messages in the morning. I talked to Mike about 8:15, confirming plans for the day. A 2 minute conversation sat-phone to sat-phone takes about 30 minutes, due to the inherent issues with satellites (and probably some bad programming). Anyway, I kept the line free starting at 9AM, the next check-in time. The plan was if you dont succeed at the check-in, you keep trying indefinitely. By 9:30, still no call or messages. By this point, Kristin and I had been through all of the possible scenarios we could think of, and we both were 100% sure that we had independently confirmed the 9-and-9 comms schedule with multiple team members. It seemed highly unlikely that 4 people with two sat phones would simultaneously become incapacitated to the point where they could not place a call, but given the situation we had to assume that this was the case. So I called Mike and asked him to launch Bob immediately to go look for them, and also contact Search and Rescue to put them on alert and check to see if the hiking team had already called them. Again this process took half an hour. At 10AM, Kristin had the bright idea to call Joe's wife, as he was checking in regularly with her. So I did that, and sure enough, Joe had checked in with her 15 minutes earlier, saying that all was fine and they were half-way down the valley. So I called Mike back to stand-down, by which point it was nearly 11AM. So an entire morning of stress and frustration set the tone for Turner's birthday. It was such a bummer compared to the pleasantness of yesterday. At this point, we were still fixed to camp, as I felt I needed to be near the phones to help coordinate the transfer to the next phase of the trip. The hiking team was critical to this, as I wanted them on the Hulahula before any other float-trip members showed up, as at least I knew that they had phones, tents, stoves, food, etc., and the first people arriving in Deadhorse were relatively unequipped and inexperienced. So we spent the day puttering around doing a lot of low level cleanup and sorting and busy-work, which seemed to drag on like a hang-nail, while trying to pay as much attention to Turner as we could. I've really tried hard over the past few years to become a kinder-gentler Matt, but I still let things get under my skin that shouldnt. On the one hand I feel justified about being grumpy in having to launch a completely unnecessary rescue operation, but on the other hand I'm not sure there is anything worth getting grumpy about. I think what really gets me is being able to largely predict how small screw-ups will propagate into larger failures; rationally I would think I should be happy when I'm right, but rather I get grumpy. If I were a wiser and more patient type, I would say that I'm surrounded by educatable-moments, where I've played some role in helping others learn something, but rather my first reaction is to beat my chest and grab a big whomping stick. I mean, under optimal conditions I had only 4-5 days of work to do. I gave myself two weeks to do it, and I still didnt get it done, largely because of either my time being wasted by logistics or my time or resources spent helping others. The age-old frustration I've experienced out here is that any time that I might otherwise have for a relaxed breakfast conversation or a day hike for fun is consumed by helping others or dealing with camp minutia, which then frees up time for the others to do those fun things. It's completely my fault of course. The problem with having such a high opinion of my capabilities is that I feel that anything I can visualize I can accomplish, so mission 'creep' is hardly an adequate description of the workload I pile onto what would otherwise be a simple, stress-free project plan. I have to conclude that I must be masochistic when it comes to field work, and given the amount of swearing I do at snowmachine bolts or river water trying to sweep me away, I must take some satisfaction in the plowing through the pain or frustration despite what I might think in the moment. In any case, everyone was fine and the transfer was happening. Bob flew a couple of gear loads into the Hulahula and the hiking team made it to the Jago strip, albeit via Jaeger Pass rather than the river route, for reasons still obscure to me. It's 8PM now, and I'm sitting in the evening sun, drinking from my birthday flask, somewhat wishing I had another 2 weeks to spend here with the family rather than the upcoming float trip. The highlight of the day was a dinner picnic on the helipad, where for the first time ever, it was just the 3 of us celebrating Turner's birthday, eating the 3 remaining cupcakes. For us, the trip has been a brand new experience, with Turner now being fully self-aware and transitioned to a rational, physically-capable part of the family. It's tough to say where things will go from here, but we've given a lot of thought on this trip to being a Nolan-only field team for future expeditions.
13 August 2011 Hulahula River The next day was a hectic one, and reminded me of my age. We spent the morning packing and preparing to leave. Ideally we would have broke down the cook tent yesterday afternoon, but the events of the morning derailed our preparations. It takes 4-5 hours to break down the tent, dry it, and get everything that was inside of it put safely away somewhere, and by the time we were ready for this it late afternoon and we didnt have the energy or will for it. Fortunately it was a beautiful night and morning, so the tent was fairly dry before taking it apart. Then there were loads to run up and down the hill, boxes to pack, etc. I took an hour off to take my first (and only) panorama of the trip, one I try to take each expedition looking over the glacier from the IGY survey spot behind camp. Snow Dome suffered a lot this summer, with new nunataks emerging and lots of thinning and shrinking.
In the meantime our wayward hikers had made it back from Kaktovik, where they spent the night, and Matt Khosh and the remaining load of gear had made to the river, so Bob was ready to pull us out by 4PM. We were still several hours away from being ready, but the weather was perfect and we felt we needed to take advantage of it. So Bob came in about 5:30PM to pull out Kristin and Turner, and also bring in John Carlson who had arrived at the Hulahula the night before. John of course had his video camera with him, but was also of course ready to help out with whatever needed to be done. We headed up the hill to finish packing the caches and break down the remaining tents. Bob had a quick turn-around and before we had gotten very far he had returned. So John filmed his landing and take-out from camp, while I went down and loaded him up with a straight gear load. By the time I returned, John had already finished most of the tarping and rocking, so we shuttled a load down to the glacier and before we were down there, Bob had returned again. So John headed out, leaving me to shuttle one more load from camp and then put the snow machines to bed for winter. By this time I was wasted physically, between my ever present cold and the huge amount of gear moving, plus the late hour and not eating all day, I was really looking forward to some sleep. By the time we had the final load in the plane and were ready to go, it was midnight. We enjoyed some great alpenglow and a full moon on our way out. The coastal plain was completely socked in, and it was moving towards our camp site, but fortunately not over the top of it. So we landed with 20 minutes to spare before we were in the fog, and enjoyed a nice dinner and a few drinks in the cook tent by the river before getting some well deserved sleep, especially for Bob who had done a heroic job of shuttling so many loads.
I slept in a bit but it soon became unbearably hot in the tent. It was a bright sunny day and quite hot compared to the glacier. The bugs werent too bad, but still noticeable. The tundra was still green, with little sign yet of fall. I spent the early afternoon sorting gear, trying to make sure that glacier gear went back to Happy Valley but boating gear remained here, and took care of little projects and decisions around camp. Bob woke up about noon and headed back to Happy Valley to pick up the crew that had driven up the day before. Ken Tape and Chris Arp came in first, followed later in the evening by Philip Marsh and Jason Stolarski. By then we had also flown out the bulk of the glacier gear, including about 600-800 pounds of garbage we managed to get off the glacier the night before, mostly old batteries from prior expeditions that gave him some dense weight forward to balance our gear in the back. Taking off from the tundra -- 24MB
Now that the entire team was assembled, we had our first group meeting to discuss goals for the trip. We had never met as a group before, and there were some introductions to be made as well. John and Kate filmed the meeting, as well as a variety of conversations beforehand. It was an exciting moment in the sense that after so much planning the trip seemed to be finally coming together.
17 August 2011 Fish Hole 2 The 13th of August was our first real science day at Fish Hole 2 as a group. Everyone self-organized to do various things. Ken and Philip headed to the fish hole and the lake on the terrace above. Greta, Matt Khosh, Jason, Kate, and Joe headed to Old Man Creek to do some water chemistry sampling. Michael, John and Kate wandered down stream filming folks. The Nolans stayed in camp. I was hoping Bob would come in with our final load and we could head up to Esetuk Glacier to download the weather station I put in last year. But the weather deteriorated in the mountains during the day. By mid-afternoon there were significant clouds building up over the mountains, and thunder booms occasionally. Bob showed up in the afternoon with our final load of gear, and then he and Kristin headed downriver to check out the landing strips along the way so that if we needed emergency bailouts or resupply we would all know what our options were. Before dinner, the Nolans took a walk around the island that our camp was on, playing tag and exploring the vegetation and landscape. That night we had our first Show and Tell of the trip, where everyone described their day's adventures and findings. We decided to spend an extra day here because it was such an interesting area. Also, we were waiting for some additional raft parts that we realized had been left behind in Fairbanks.
The next day went much like the last. There was a lot of fog in the morning, but it quickly broke up, leaving us in a donut hole of sunshine with fog around the morainal slopes. Joe, Kate, Michael, and Matt Khosh decided to hike up to Esetuk Creek, a significant day hike. Jason and Philip checked and deployed minnow traps. Ken and Greta spent much of the day at the lake across the river from camp. John and Kate of course filmed everything they could. The Nolans stayed in camp again, trying to manage logistics, keep the camp in tact, and serve as a centralized point for hiking management.
In the afternoon a few us began seeing if we could improvise solutions for making the boats functional without the missing parts so that we could start floating tomorrow. The general problem was that two of the large blue rafts were meant to have float with oarlocks, but some pieces of each oarlock set were missing. We discovered that the oarlocks meant for the Soar boats could be used on these other rafts missing their metal parts. In the end we decided our best plan was to use one of the Soar oarlocks on the larger raft, use paddles in the smaller raft, and use a kayak paddle and regular paddle for two people in the Soar now without oarlocks. It was a fun project and just goes to show what a glaciologist, terrestrial ecologist, a bird ecologist, and fish biologist can do together. That night we had another Show and Tell and discussed logistics for the next day. We decided we would go ahead and float without the missing parts, which could also possibly show up before we left. We were all a bit concerned that the water was so low and clear, especially after our stories about our June trip, but at this point it seemed high enough to float and late enough in the year that waiting for more glacier melt may require over-wintering.
We woke about 7AM on the 15th, our first day of floating. It was great to see everyone working so efficiently and helping each other out trying to get ready. We had yet to load the boats or determine what could fit where and still float. We dry loaded the boats on the tundra to sort some of these things out. By 11AM the boats were all in the water and in some stage of loading. We had a group safety and logistics meeting on the banks, and by noon were actually floating, basically right on schedule.
Minor chaos quickly ensued. Chris decided to go down a different channel in his boat, rather than follow Jason and our boats, just downstream of camp. That channel was the better choice, but now the team was split, and most of the others got ahead of us. We got hung up on a rock in the meantime, a stupid move by me driving into the only rock in the channel. But it was a big one and we were good and stuck. Kristin got out of the boat, trying to push with her feet against the rock to pry the boat free. With water pouring over the slippery surface, she slipped down into the hole in front of the rock, in water up to her armpits and feet not touching bottom, and the boat moved over her. She stayed remarkably calm, just saying that the water was deep here. But she was too far below the boat to pull herself up. I leaned over and between us we were able to move the boat off her and get her back inside, now pretty wet beneath her chest waders. Eventually we got the boat unstuck and called on the radio for everyone to gather at the next gravel bar. We had a little discussion on safety, describing that however unlikely it was that someone could drown in such low water than it had just nearly happened, and that sticking together and following the leader were still important. Everyone was in good spirits and the floating went amazingly well the rest of the day.
We stopped periodically to do science along the way. Chris counted pebbles, Greta took water and invertebrate samples, Matt took chemistry samples, Ken looked at shrubs and hunted for moose poop. The weather was kind of cold and drizzly for much of the trip. Turner was pretty quiet and cold. In the first 5 minutes of his first float trip he had watched his mother nearly drown, so he was not so impressed with boating so far. We hadnt realized it until later that night, but his pants were already soaked with water. He had been playing in the water as we were loading boats, but the zipper on his dry suit was not fully closed. During our first safety chat, the women got him energized, playing tag and other games, while we made a hot water bottle for him to put into his suit while the others were doing something scientific, and after that he seemed fine.
The water level was great for floating, high enough to not have to drag and low enough to not be too scary. Jason had been leading in the Moravia with Matt, but after a while I took the lead. It had been 20 years since I had been on a real float trip, and never leading. But it was a lot of fun and interesting to read the water and pick the route. In general I think I did pretty well, I only got stuck once more. I seemed to do a lot better picking my way through rock gardens than avoiding single rocks in a wide channel. The advantage to our boat in the lead is that I could stand on the hard boxes and get a good view downstream. The other main advantage is that with everyone behind us, if we did get stuck everyone else was behind us to help. But it was rarely needed. There were one or two spots where the water was simply too thin to float over riffles and most people got hung up, but in general we made great progress.
As planned, we stopped about 6PM to camp. We found a nice spot inside the moraines and starting setting up tents. It was cold and rainy at this point. It was probably the low point of the trip for the Nolans. Though Turner was in good spirits despite being wet the whole day, Kristin was sad to discover that her dry bag leaked and got her spare clothes and sleeping bag wet. So they crawled into their driest clothes and sleeping bags while I made hot water bottles to warm them up. It was more than an hour before dinner was ready, but by this time there were thawed out and happy again. I was in my dry suit and PFD the whole evening, even through dinner, and was happy to crawl into my bag at the end of the night, happy with our progress despite the mishaps right at the beginning of the trip.
The next day, yesterday, we set Fish Hole 1 as our goal and planned to keep floating until we got there, taking the next day, today, off to explore this new landscape type of coastal plain. We launched at 11AM, floating through what seemed to me to be a lot more willow. These willows were all uniform height, as if trimmed by a gardener. So we discussed browse by ptarmigan and moose. We also passed by owls, raptors, and ducks. There was a seagull that stayed ahead of us for several miles as well. Again we stopped periodically to stretch our legs and do some work. The big mid-point goal of the day was to find an old vegetation plot that had been studied first in the early 1980s, and had not been visited in the past 5 years. Here they were studying the impacts of oil exploration on the tundra by comparing track marks vs undisturbed tundra. This was probably the coldest point of the trip so far. It was overcast, windy and rainy, perfect hypothermia weather. I pulled over as we approached the GPS point we had for the plot, and we all got out to hunt for the stakes that mark it. I stayed behind with Kristin and Turner for a while, and set up the megamid to get out of the wind and have some lunch. The others had wandered far and wide, but were soon returning towards the boats having failed to find the stakes. As it turns out, the stakes were fallen over right next to where I moored the boats, making it convenient for us all.
Our next stop was the USGS discharge gage that had been installed last fall as part of this overall project. The water was deep here, and we were itching to keep moving, so we didnt measure discharge at the site. Chris had already done it in the morning anyway, so there was little point to doing it again.
We pressed on, having a great time and stopping as needed for science. By now we were outside of the moraines and on the coastal plain. Though the clouds were too low to see them, the mountains were now in the distance. As we approached Fish Hole 1, we saw Bob circling overhead. My Icom was not working, so we tried calling on the sat phone, which was especially marginal given the rushing water and rushing air that we both were dealing with. But in any case, he dropped off the missing raft parts and went to retrieve our other gear left at Fish Hole 2, as he didnt want to linger. As we pulled into our destination, we saw him take off. It was 8PM by this point, but everyone was still in great spirits and we began unloading the boats and setting up tents. About 10PM, just before dinner, Frank Urban arrived via helicopter. His schedule had been pushed back by helicopter and weather delays previously, but now that he was ready we were outside the Wilderness boundary, he used the helicopter to catch up with us. So we were now at the originally intended group size, sitting down to our first meal together, expertly prepared by Philip. Turner had been happy and excited the whole day while floating, and had some great Kate time while setting up tents, and soon after eating he fell asleep in his mother's arms in the cook tent, and had to be dragged back to our sleeping tent, snoring the whole way. Today we're spending the day exploring.
17 August 2011 Again it was comforting to see everyone excited about exploring a new landscape type, the coastal plain. Most of the interest centered around the springs nearby, which feed the large aufeis field that forms here in winter and likely creates the hole that the fish overwinter in. Chris and Frank counted rocks and measured discharge, Greta and Matt took samples and water quality measurements of the river and springs along with the McConnells and Michael, Ken explored the shrubs and floodplain, John and Kate scrambled to video everything, and the Nolans largely hung out, visited, coordinated activity, and did some local exploring.
We decided to get together at 6PM for a show and tell so that we could have an early night and get an early start the next day. What I had been noticing over the past few days, besides a lot of smiles and excitement, is that everyone seemed to be getting the bigger picture. There was less bewilderment about finding new things and more excitement about considering how new things fit into overall system. So at this show and tell, I tried to help the transition along a little bit by describing the history of the Refuge a bit and what our place in that history was and could be. The Nolans were invited to a symposium earlier this year celebrating the 50 year anniversary of the Refuge, where we learned a lot about the history of the Refuge and its guiding characters and their ideals. The Refuge was founded in early 1961, after several years of agitation for it led by Olaus Murie. Olaus was a well known and respected ecologist who had done pioneering work in Alaska and the Arctic dating back 50 years or so before that. In 1956, he and his wife Mardie led a 6 week trip along the Sheenjek River with several graduate students (who since went on to be leading ecologists themselves). We must have heard reference to the "1956 Sheenjek Expedition" at least 100 times at this meeting, if not 1000 times. They even made a play about the trip, drawing from field books of the participants. In the annals of ecological history, this trip is legend and these folks are super-heroes. For example, enshrined in a glass case in the lobby of the National Conservation Training Center, where the symposium was held, are a pair of Olaus' smelly boots and in another display is a scale model of the Murie's house in Wyoming. As a newcomer to all this, I found the level of reverence a bit over the top, but as a physical scientist I took note that no one at this meeting had ever heard of Dick Hubley, who in 1957 led a 16 month expedition in what is now the heart of the Wilderness Area in the Refuge, or if they had heard they never mentioned it. It struck me at that time that had Olaus died in 1956 (he died shortly after the formation of the Refuge) and Hubley lived into the 1960s (he died in 1957 about 6 months into the expedition), that it might have been Hubley instead of Murie that led the campaign for formation of the Refuge. How different would this 50th anniversary celebration been?! There were people here agitating that none of the peaks and glaciers here should have names, because names apparently spoiled the wilderness character of the place for them. But these folks are largely ecologists, or at least lovers of animals and plants. Had Hubley been in charge, perhaps the currently prevailing sentiment would be that none of the animals, birds, and plants should have names! It just goes to show me that it's not things that bother people, it's what those things represent. And there's no accounting for or predicting what the same things will represent to different people. In any case, one of the guiding principles behind the formation of the Arctic Refuge was to preserve a space large enough for the local ecology to unfold and evolve due to natural influences, or at least not to any direct influences of man or his installations. For caribou, this means having a really, really large space. A close second to this principle, usually said in the same breath, is that this space should serve as a natural laboratory for scientists to study the process of nature on this grand scale. The way I see it, neither the dream of Dick Hubley (to understand the linkages of glacier dynamics with climate on McCall Glacier) or Olaus Murie (to understand the linkages of climate, physical science, and ecology) had really been fulfilled, largely due to their untimely deaths and no one filling in their shoes (perhaps because they were in a glass case...). So I proposed to the group that we have an opportunity here to be the first group of scientists in the Refuge to try to tackle these linkages within an entire watershed in a truly holistic way at the outset. This is not to say that there havent been many good studies here on a variety of interesting and useful topics, just that as far as I know there has never been a team assembled covering nearly all of the physical and ecological disciplines charged with understanding the linkages in operation here as a system. So I probably schpeeled too long on the subject, but it was a beautiful evening ending a beautiful day, and easy to get carried away. Another point I felt worth making, having just left the official Wilderness Area, was that where we were sitting, in view of both the mountains and the coast, was eligible for oil drilling. That is, there could be an oil well right on our current camp site. Worse, if that was the case, we would not be allowed to camp here, and if we tried to float this river we would likely be harassed by armed goons hired by the oil fields to discourage such activity, just like what is done to the west.
18 August 2011 Five-mile strip Today we were up at 7AM anticipating a 10AM launch. I think the Nolans were the hold up, but at least to some extent due to people starting their breakfasts at 9:30AM using our pots and stove, which we need to pack first into our boat boxes so everything else can go around it. But in any case were floating by 10:45 AM, which was our earliest start yet.
Now we were entering a new phase of the trip. Having left the confining slopes of the ice age moraines, the river was now free to braid over the landscape. When the already low water gets split into several different channels, each channel is of course thinner and slower than a single, combined channel. So there was a lot of potential for dragging boats over water too thin to float on. Picking the wrong channel could also exacerbate the problem. Further, coastal fog had the potential for us losing sight of each other. So it was good that we had the simpler warm-up period of the past several days just to get into a routine. As it turned out, right off the bat we were dragging boats. After about an hour of this, we regrouped and I mentioned that this was part of the intended experience -- now everyone has a first-hand appreciation for the differences between the coastal plain and foothills. It was mostly our boat that was having trouble. I still liked the cataraft in many ways, but the boats with inflatable bottoms were having a much easier time of it. So we shifted some of our gear into those boats, doing our best to try to equalize floatation. This seemed to help our floatation significantly, and for the rest of the day we barely had to drag. It's not clear to me whether this was just due to the weight, or whether the first section really was worse, but in any case we had great weather and were making great time. The mountains really opened up during the day, after early morning fog, and everyone seemed to be in great spirits. At our lunch spot, after everyone had finished up their science, we paused for a group photo on the beach.
By 4:30PM, we had already made our quota of 15km, about halfway to the coast. Given the great weather we decided to change our plans. Rather than stop at 6PM to help ensure an early start the next day, we decided to press on to the 5 mile air strip and still try to get our early start, so that we could spend more time on the coast learning about bird ecology. By getting to this strip, we could have some confidence that if the weather turned bad, meaning mostly if the winds became too strong to boat, that we had a reliable backup plan to fly out if necessary. We found the strip about 8PM, and I think everyone was glad to have pushed on, as it would make the next day much shorter, or allow us more time for screw ups. I talked with Roy that night, and we made a plan to try to link up or talk by phone about 1PM the next day.
19 August 2011 Five Mile Strip The weather today was much like the day before, with some fog in the morning clearing later in the day. The Nolans also got their acts together a little better, in part due to clearing out the cook stove and pots by 9AM, and we were floating by 10:30AM. We didnt have far to go at this point, but it was hard to tell. Roy's camp was on the Okpilak River, one drainage over, about 5 km away. But to get there, we had to go out to the coast and come around. But where the coast was located wasnt clear from our GPS, nor was it clear which channel to take -- for floating we want to go where the most water is but to get to the Okpilak River we wanted to stay as far east as possible, and it wasnt clear whether these goals were compatible. As it turns out, at low water the braids always reconnected, so any strategery on our part for staying east was a waste of time.
As we ate lunch, the wind began to pick up. One of my mistakes in trying to herd cats until now was not setting a specific time for launching after breaks, and so it always worked out that one person wasnt ready, and while that person was getting ready another person would start something new, and then that person wasnt ready, so someone else would start something new, etc. So this time, I announced a time for being back in the boats floating. This probably improved our remobilization time, but it didnt eliminate the dynamic completely. It was especially stressful for me, as I knew what the wind here could be like, and having just left the security of our tundra air strip, I was not looking forward to spending the next several days trying to make it another mile against a stiff wind in low water. But we did get off in a reasonable time and started making headway again. The winds did increase, but the water seemed to all come into a single channel again. It was a little disturbing as this channel kept carrying us west, away from Roy's camp, but the good news was the water was flowing in the same direction as the wind, at least for the moment. We continued on like this for an hour or so, and eventually saw a few people walking towards us from the coast.
We pulled over and waited, and it turned out to be Roy and Olivia, who had walked over from their camp to meet us. The water between here and there was too low for our boats, and they recommended we camp right where we were, which was the last bit of tundra before the mud flats started. A quick walk around proved that there were multiple options for landing an airplane here, so I felt comfortable again that we had options. Roy went to find the rest of his crew and do a little more work, and agreed to bring everyone by our camp, rather than us going to them, while we set up camp.
About 7PM we all met in the cook tent for another show and tell. Roy explained his project to us and what they were currently working on. He is looking at shorebirds on 3 deltas -- the Hulahula/Okpilak River deltas, the Jago River delta, and the Canning River delta. Specifically, he was looking at what the shorebirds eat and how this relates to their population dynamics. The birds here largely eat invertebrates that live in the mud. The invertebrates here are largely the freshwater kind, primarily chironomids and oligochete worms, unlike those on the Canning delta which are largely marine invertebrates, such as amphipods. We had an interesting discussion about what causes the differences between the two, and it largely seemed to come down to the presence of glaciers here. The deltas here are much larger than the Canning and much siltier, and the water here is much fresher. Silt and freshwater are two ingredients that glaciers provide a lot of. None of us were coastal geomorphologists, so we couldnt really make the causal link, but the coincidence seemed pretty reassuring. I had hoped to spend tomorrow on the coast, learning about birds and meeting with Jim and Ken on their larger boat doing marine work. But the forecast for the next day was predicting 35 knot winds and Jim and Ken had cancelled their work plans as the seas would be too rough. And with the bird camp still 5 km away, it seemed unlikely we would get over there as a group. Plus, an outbreak of get-home-itis was erupting. So it seemed time to begin our pull-out. Our plan until now had been for Roy to help us get to Katkovik using his zodiacs, but such winds and the lack of sea ice would create waves too large for such boats. Fortunately with a place to land here, we had the option of pulling out via fixed wing airplane. So we went to bed that night without a concrete plan for the morning's work, waiting for the weather to make a decision for us.
20 August 2011 Hulahula Delta It was dead calm this morning. For the several hours before I called Roy at 8AM, I felt like I had set my tent up in a zoo, with all kinds of unusual animals sounds occurring around us. Given that the weather was so nice, we decided to use boats for the pull-out. I had also wanted to use fixed wing to speed things up as the forecast was still for bad weather, but was unable to get hold of 70N until later in the day. The major complication with the boat pull-out was the low water -- it was unlikely that Roy's motor boats could make it up the last bit of river channel that we were on. So one option was for us to break down camp and float the coast where his boats could park, about 1-2 km away. I was hesitant to do this, because if the wind came up during this process, we could get stuck on a barrier island, taking the full force of the wind and waves, with no options for fixed wing or boat. So Roy and Olivia picked their way up the channel in their 18' Achilles by about 11AM. It seemed clear from this process, however, that they would be unable to shuttle loads efficiently from our camp, as they had gotten stuck several times. By this time, Ken's boat was parked nearby in the ocean, a second zodiac was standing by, and our camp was broken down, except for the cook tent we were leaving up as a quick weather shelter. So we loaded up our rafts and followed Roy into ocean.
Of course about this time the winds began increasing. I had been talking with Ken's boat via a marine radio I brought, and they were already getting nervous about the winds and urging us to hurry. We beached on a sandbar just inside the barrier islands, and began breaking down our rafts. This took the better part of an hour to complete, by which point the Proteus was threatening to leave without us as the waves were getting intense. So we loaded up the two zodiacs with people and shuttled them out to the larger boat a mile away. Then the zodiacs would return to us for a load they would take back to Kaktovik. Ken had agreed to stay with me in case there was not enough room for everything, so I sent out the people that seemed most eager to be somewhere else while the rest of us finalized packaging and discussed options. The weather was indeed turning windier, and added a sense of desperation to our plight. I paced out the sandbar and figured it was just big enough to land a plane with winds like this, but this was no place to camp, as it was just a narrow bit of sand a few inches about ocean level. As the inflatables returned for a final load, I decided it would be better to ditch gear than leave people behind, as once the gear was assembled it seemed clear that to get it on would mean leaving behind more people than just Ken and I. So we shifted gears and made a pile of the most bear-proof gear, like barrels and boat frames and rigid boxes, and piled all of the people into the two boats. Frank and I rode in the smaller boat, while the other 5 rode the 18' with Roy.
Battling the waves -- 143MB (a little bouncy, but the end is worth watching) Once we rounded the barrier islands, which seemed no more substantial than the bar we had just left, the wave size picked up substantially. Fortunately they were not breaking on their own, but were sharp crested swells that occasionally reached 10' high. So it was an interesting way to end the trip, and while the boatmen were used to being in the open ocean, the rest of us had grown used to being in a confined river with no appreciable waves, so it definitely added some desperation and excitement to the trip. It took a good two hours to make it back, rather than the 45 minutes in calm seas, and by the time our boat arrived we had lost sight of the other. The thought of drifting out to sea in waves like this with a broken motor was not an appealing one, nor one I had much experience with in terms of rescue operations. But fortunately the skies were still clear, so hopefully a larger boat combined with aircraft spotters would make a good combination. We beached in the lagoon and headed into the bunkhouse, as we only had one truck available and it was waiting for us when we arrived. The Proteus team had arrived about 20 minutes ahead of us, as we were able to make pretty good time in the smaller boat, which had the same engine as the 18' still out there. I hadnt even taken my life jacket off at the bunkhouse before I was getting questions about hot showers and dinner plans, which I had no energy or will to focus on considering what we had just gone through and that it wasnt clear to me yet whether all our people were safe or whether we were ever going to see our boating gear again. But fortunately our missing people came in, with a good story about the perils of bringing bear spray on a bouncy boat, and shortly afterwards we were visited by a number of friends from town that we hadnt seen in quite a while.
It was after 8PM by the time the dust settled and everyone had eaten and gotten a shower. The get-home-itis bug was now in fever stage, but with half our gear stranded on a tiny mudflat below high-tide level, final plans had to be shifted accordingly. But it did seem like this would be our last night together, so we assembled in the bunkhouse lounge for what would probably be our final wrap up and meeting as a group. The final impression I was left with was that the trip was transformative in many ways, in particular to the individuals involved. I think it's a rare field trip that contains so many people for everyone to get along and stay engaged. I remember one trip in Antarctica where I became the odd man out, so I know how easy it is for group dynamics to settle into a pattern like that. Scientifically, it appeared to me that everyone left energized and excited to learn more, and I know all too well how easy it is to leave a campaign exhausted or demoralized or discouraged. So overall and in particulars, I dont think I could have expected a better outcome for the trip. Though if I had to complain about something, it would be that I wish it had been about twice as long, as for me personally I never felt I had the time or opportunity to spend actually working enough with the various groups, being mainly focused on staying a few steps ahead logistically or solving minor issues with gear or camping etc. But the show and tells and other conversations throughout the day were an adequate substitute, plus the impression that we will have many similar opportunities in the future, though likely more often in pair-wise teams than a large diverse group.
21 August 2011 Kaktovik The day had both frustrations and successes. Personally, it was really the first day on whole trip where I could just hang out. I had more juicy scientific conversations today than probably the whole trip combined. With our gear still stranded, however, it was difficult making any plans for its return to Fairbanks. The Nolans would be happy to stay here a week, and I think Greta was ready to move into the bunkhouse permanently, but of course most people were ready to get going back to their civilized lives and families. I had originally thought of chartering a larger plane to take people and gear in one shot to Deadhorse, where they could more easily catch commercial flights and the gear could be trucked south. But with commercial opportunities also available through Kaktovik, even on Sunday, and everyone so eager and willing to create their own plans, I largely let everyone fend for themselves and dealt with the overflow. I'm not the best with communications, but I do understand logistics and safety pretty well, and I know that take-outs offer the most opportunities for disasters, as people's focus shifts from the here and now to what they are going to do when they get home, and the prime time for mistakes is by moving too quickly, such as getting separated from critical safety gear while going from point A to B and then not making it to B, or by advancing the pull-out schedule without thinking through the full implications of doing so, etc. And the amount of misinformation and high-frequency noise associated with commercial flight reservations in Kaktovik is staggering and best ignored. So likely I came off as either being vague or snippy at times, and though there was more unplanned-for risk than I would have liked, in the end I think we made the most of our situation and opportunities, and I was just too relieved by that to pay much attention to whether it was today or tomorrow or the next day that anyone made it back to civilization.
We had a great group discussion in the morning, focused on Jim and Ken's work in the marine environment. I was under the impression that they studied how dirt turned into food, but as I learned, they are not much interested in dirt. Rather, they are interested in whether the food that fish eat comes from the land or sea. Food from the land comes in the form of bits of plants that get washed downstream, or in a more dissolved form that gets flushed from the river banks like water flowing through a tea bag. The food from the ocean largely comes from phytoplankton, where nutrients and sunshine turn into food. They can track the carbon isotopes within the food web to distinguish between the marine and terrestrial sources. They can also tell how long that carbon has been laying around through different isotopes. For example, if a duck is largely eating plant matter he is digging up from the bottom of a lake, and that plant matter was formed 2500 years ago and just recently exposed when a chunk of the lake bank fell off into the water, they can figure this out. In the context of glaciers, what I think we left most excited about was how glaciers here help form the lagoons via silt production where a lot of the marine action occurs, and also that this silt may contain inorganic nutrients, kind of like fertilizer for the plants growing there.
Joe and Kate were the first to depart. They managed to get reservations on an unusual flight leaving Kaktovik on a Sunday. Our plans for a charter carrying people and gear weren't really shaping up, as we still didnt have the gear. So by afternoon I think nearly everyone had commercial reservations for the next day and were taking what gear they had in hand with them as baggage. I wasted a lot of time trying to reach 70N about them ferrying John, Kate and Michael to Deadhorse, but communications were difficult and when I finally did reach them they were too busy to help us out until nearly 7PM. So that was frustrating, but they did make it in and get them to Deadhorse that evening. We were hoping for a second flight that night, but by the time Bob made it back in the area, the fog had rolled in, so he spent the night sleeping in the plane not far out of town.
22 August 2011 Kaktovik Today began much like yesterday. I spent the morning in the bunkhouse, waiting for Bob to check in. It was pleasant to just hang out and chat about science or whatever. I think everyone was excited about getting back home as well. The weather had improved substantially, which also help to brighten spirits. Roy and Olivia launched about 9AM to try to recover our gear by boat, now that the seas had died down, which was very generous of them, as they were also trying to pack up their remote camps and had back to town this week as well. It was unclear at this time whether the gear was even still there, but we were hopeful. Bob arrived in town about 10AM, and we headed out to the tundra to recover some science gear. Part of our research this year was attempting to assess the differences and similarities between the Hulahula and Jago watersheds. As part of that, I measured discharge on the Jago River to compare to similar measurements by the USGS on the Hulahula River. To do this, I installed some small pressure transducers in the Jago River in early June. These are about the size of a cigar and virtually invisible once installed (and sometimes quite hard to find and recover...), compared to the telemetered USGS transducer which connects to a sizeable box on land where the information gets transmitted to the internet, unlike mine which log internally, hopefully. In any case, it was a hot day in the mountains and I was way overdressed for it. The water level on the Jago was still low and the water still clear, so apparently the glaciers hadnt yet responded to the heat, likely still dealing with the fresh dusting of snow visible on the surrounding rocks. This was the lowest water levels all year, as some of my transducers were above current water level, despite having put them in during the lowest water level until that point. A couple of them were also quite buried in sediment, which matches my gaging data that indicates that the other side of the river had begun carrying a lot more water through the summer. But in the end, I was able to pry everything loose, including the anchors, so I was glad to say that this work left no trace but hopefully yielded some great and useful data.
On the way back, we swung past Fish Hole 1 where we had left some gear while rafting, and then tried to make it back to Kaktovik before everyone left on Frontier. We heard their plane calling in when landing and knew it would be tight. Once on the ground, I jumped out and headed towards it, just as they were pulling up the stair and closing the door. So I didnt get to say goodbye, but was able to wave. So then it was just the Nolans remaining, with a boatload of gear that Roy and Olivia were able to salvage for us. By now it was after 2PM, and my goal was to make one gear run back to Happy Valley and one last run for us and our personal gear. I was hesitant to send us first, because leaving gear behind is always a recipe for disaster, either not everything makes it, or it takes a long time because there are no people impatiently stranded with it, etc. So we loaded Bob up with as much as he could take, which was nearly everything except for the rubber parts of the Moravia and Avon rafts which we had borrowed from Fish and Wildlife. I felt comfortable stranding these here, as just two large items with a single owner are easy to track and manage, rather than two dozen miscellaneous items belonging to a variety of people. The plan was that was that Bob would call when he launched from Happy Valley to get us, but the call never came and my many messages to Mike were never received on his sat phone, so around 9PM, when the fog had already been thick for nearly an hour, we gave up waiting and started unpacking again for another night in Kaktovik. 24 August 2011 Fairbanks I decided that the next morning I wasnt going to waste my time on a sat phone or stressing about being ready should they decide to arrive. So after checking my messages to make sure there wasnt something from them, we had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel and enjoyed some family time together. By now we had decided to fly commercial ourselves, and starting repackaging our gear to mail USPS and on Frontier. They had changed their rules during the merger, so rather than just going by total weight, they actually charged per bag, so we began trying to minimize bags and equalize them at 50 pounds. About 11AM, Turner told me that the "food maker man" (Randy, who runs the hotel) told him that Bob called while we were outside repacking. So I called his sat phone and sure enough he picked up, saying he was sitting on a sandbar a few miles from town. The weather had been improving all morning and there was blue sky above me, so I told him that he could probably launch from there and make it in. So we really picked up the pace at this point, trying to get some boxes to the post office in a hurry and just close up the rest of the bags and boxes to take to the airport. Things were complicated by having to share the USFWS pickup and deal with the post office itself, but by noon or so we were on the runway, packing the plane. Our gear weight wasnt an issue, but volume was starting to be, so we emptied our dry bags and stuffed their contents into all of the nooks and crannies and were able to make it all fit. An hour later, we were in Happy Valley. By now it was after 2PM, and we had to make a decision about where to spend the night. We had a place to stay here,
12 December 2011 Fairbanks Well, obviously we made it back to Fairbanks somehow. As I recall, as soon as we were able to pack the vehicles we hit the road going south, getting home in the early morning. And as I recall, I spent the two days after our return asleep. It was about two weeks before we saw all of the gear back and were able to redistribute it. As far as I know, the only thing that went missing were some plywood floorboards for one of the rafts left in our sandbar cache, which I'm pretty sure floated away during the storm as there was nothing weighting them down. About this time we had a reunion at our house for the Fairbanks crowd, where we watched an hour or two of random clips out of the 20-30 hours of filming that John and Kate had done. Soon, though, the demands of the next projects caught up to me, as well as issues caused by being away for a month. Next on our list was an aerial photography project in Kotzebue, one that I had intended to do in July but could not due to technical and logistical reasons. But before we could leave, I had to integrate and test a new laser/photogrammetry system to use there. It wasnt until October that I felt that the summer was coming to a close. After such an exhausting summer, I felt it necessary to invest in a hot tub for relaxation this winter, which of course meant spending a week in November working outside in the cold getting it set up. But it was, in fact, worth it. I think in the end it wasnt the field work that made it feel so exhausting but rather that in combination with the frantic preprations in between the field work, whether dealing with logsitics, or developing or testing new instruments, etc. And that I'm only just now, in mid-December, getting around to putting anything online about our research this year says something about our pace of life this summer.
May June August September As I look back on this August trip by integrating photos into the blog, I'm still struck with what a special trip it was. It's been a long time since I've been involved in an expedition with so many people I havent worked with before in an environment that was new to me. But it all more or less worked out as planned. I think everyone came away with a great feeling about the place and the science that can be done here, and that was really the main goal. I think the decision to do this versus the standard model of a spending a few days in a meeting room discussing things and then writing a proposal to do the preliminary work was a good one. It was a big risk in many ways for the participants, as this trip was near the peak of summer field work and everyone had other projects they probably should have been working on, but all decided to come and take a chance to learn something new and see what might emerge as a result. Though it was a lot of work for me, I found it really refreshing and encouraging that so many people, including many not on the trip itself, had such a positive and supportive attitude, especially when it came to sharing costs. It was also one of the rare times I've found that I've had to throttle down people's helpfulness in the field, as it seemed that there was so much willingness to help that no sooner would I turn my back than someone would set up or break down a tent, or move gear from one place to another, that I couldnt track it or spit out the master plan quickly enough. But I should be so lucky on every trip. In the end, the scientific payoff is what is most rewarding, and though it's only been a few months since we've been back, already there are new proposals submitted and new collaborators filling in the gaps with new ideas and related glacier-ecology projects seeking us out for comparisons. So I couldnt ask for more, and it still really feels like a privilage to have been part of such a team.  Cheers! |
(c) 2010 Matt Nolan.
The Soar rafts get the award for best weight-to-hauling ratio.
