Stable Water Isotope Science on the Juneau Icefield

Stable Water Isotope Science on the Juneau Icefield

Jutta Hopkins-LeCheminant, Yukon College

Here at Camp 10 we are now frantically working on group and personal science projects.  I am a member of the group studying the stable isotopic composition of the water, snow and ice here on the Juneau Icefield.

 Sampling at various depths in snow pit on the Taku Glacier.  (photo credit Jutta Hopkins-LeCheminant)

We have collected and will continue to collect samples from various locations as we traverse from Juneau, Alaska to Atlin, British Columbia.  Some of the samples we have collected will be bottled, sealed and sent by helicopter to be analyzed at various labs at a later date, while we will analyze other samples right here at Camp 10 with the Los Gatos laser water isotope analyzer fondly known as “Steve, the Isotopolizer”.

At this point some readers may be asking “what is a stable water isotope and why are you studying them?”  I am happy to share a little bit of what I have learned so far…

Water, which is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, contains two stable oxygen isotopes- 18O and 16O.  Isotopes are variations of the same element that are of a slightly different mass, with 18O having two more neutrons than 16O.  18O is often referred to as the “heavy isotope” and 16O as the “light isotope”. 

Once the isotopic composition of a sample is determined, the ratio of heavy and light oxygen isotopes in the collected sample is compared to the ratio of a “known standard sample”, one being Vienna-Standard Mean Ocean Water or VSMOW.  The manner in which the samples differ from VSMOW can be used to determine the source(s) of the water, the temperature at which it fell as precipitation, and even how long the water has separated from the atmosphere.

While isotopic science has been used in many fields, only recently has the science been heavily applied to glaciology.  In his often cited 1953 paper, W. Dansgaard observed that precipitation in mid- and high latitude regions has a stable isotopic composition that relates to the air temperature at the site of precipitation (Dansgaard 1953).  In a 1970 paper T. Dincer et al. expanded on this by using the stable isotopes in water to observe water flowpaths and water age.  Fast forward to the present and glaciologists are now using stable water isotopes as an “isotopic thermometer” to calculate past temperatures based on the isotopic composition of snow and ice.

Austin C. with ice core samples from snow pit on the Taku Glacier. (photo credit Jutta Hopkins-LeCheminant)

One of the interesting processes that JIRP students will be studying is how stable water isotopes are related to local hydrologic patterns. The timing and amount of precipitation in the Icefield environment are responsible for the presence of glaciers on the Juneau Icefield.  The cycle begins with the clouds that form over the Pacific Ocean off the Alaskan Coast, as water evaporates from the ocean and forms clouds that contain more light isotopes than heavy isotopes relative to the ocean water.  The latitude and location at which the Alaskan Coast clouds form impart a unique isotopic composition to the water vapor within the clouds when compared to those formed at lower latitudes or over inland water bodies.

Same Icefield, Different Memories

Same Icefield, Different Memories

Blaire Slavin, The Benjamin School

I’ve been thinking a lot about following in the footsteps of others. This concept is meaningful to me because I would not be here if I didn’t follow the footsteps of my father (’73), brother (’11) and sister (’12) who all went to JIRP when they turned seventeen. Growing up I would always listen to all of their incredible JIRP stories hoping that when I turned seventeen I would be able to do the exact same. Finally, my turn has arrived. Wearing my sister’s hat and my brother’s jacket (which is way too big for me but I still love it), I perched myself on a rock overlooking the breathtaking Taku Towers just as they did. 

Me, finally completing the Slavin family JIRP wall. Happy belated Birthday Dad! (Photo by Aaron Chesler)

However, following in people’s footsteps doesn’t just pertain to me, but to every JIRPer…both literally and figuratively. In the literal sense, on traverses from one camp to the next, trail parties follow the tracks of the teams that traversed just days before them. The procedures required to record annual mass balance were established in the early 50s and are still used today. The shelf I sleep on is covered in signatures of JIRPers ranging from the 60s to just last year. The snow machine and sled that Seth, Tadhg and I used to drag our GPR (ground- penetrating radar) equipment up and down the Taku glacier was from 1995. Even some of the outhouses we use, as gross as it is to think about, were built in the late 40s and have been there for almost every JIRPer since. These examples, among many others, serve as constant reminders that we owe all that JIRP is today to the contributions of all JIRPers who came before us.  

Seth, Tadhg, and I having a blast dragging our GPR equipment in the old sled. (Photo by author)

Although I’ve been focusing on the idea of following other people’s footsteps, every JIRPer creates their own unique path. When I go home and show my family pictures of Camp 17 or Camp 10, they will bring back memories that are entirely different for each of us.

Ultimately, all JIRPers have been to the same camps, skied the same terrain, and eaten the same tasty cans of SPAM, but the Icefield has changed each individual in a slightly different way. What JIRP has done for me might not be what it has done for others. For example Annika, a former student and current staff member says JIRP has “inspired [her] to pursue connections between people, place, and climate change—in the hope of creating ripples of positive change. Also [she] has never laughed more in her life.” Jeff, a current student, says JIRP has “changed [his] perception of science from something that is done in a lab or read in a textbook to something that applies to the real world”. Alf who first started coming in 67’ says “[he] married JIRP first”. What I’ve learned from the JIRPers around me, both past and present, is that JIRP doesn’t end when we step off the ice. The calluses, blisters, and inner nostril sunburns that we’ve earned will remind us of the many places we’ve been, knowledge we’ve gained and wonderful people we’ve met. 

A Brief Introduction to Igneous Petrology

A Brief Introduction to Igneous Petrology

Mickey MacKie, Harvard University

I study geology because I need to know Earth’s past in order to understand my place in the universe. I love being able to walk around and use clues from rock formations to read their past. The world is an open history book, or so I thought.

As it turns out, my understanding of geology was limited to sedimentary rock. There are also igneous and metamorphic rocks, which are formed by varying conditions of heat and pressure. These unfamiliar rock types have surrounded me since I arrived in Juneau. I was reminded of my ignorance every single day. It drove me nuts. I couldn’t read this landscape. Juneau Icefield, what was your history?

Then came Jen Witter, an igneous petrologist from Alaska Pacific University. Here was my chance at enlightenment. The rain stopped, the clouds cleared, and a few other students and I accompanied Jen on a hike up Taku B, the peak above Camp 10. We scrambled over beautiful, glorious igneous and metamorphic rock that I couldn’t understand.  Jen explained some of the formations and minerals, and I began to grasp the events that had created the terrain. We saw amphibolite, granodiorite, and various intrusions of molten rock.

Mafic inclusions in a felsic melt (photo: Mickey MacKie)

We worked our way to the top. The weather was happy enough to make up for its previous rage. I stood on top of the world and looked down. The Taku Glacier was sprawled far beneath our feet. I could see the gleam of sunshine on metal from camp down below. To our left lay the dirty depression of a drained glacial lake. Jen collected samples. Seth found a bottle of Tums with a pencil and notebook inside. It held the signatures of JIRPers before us. We added our own and lorded over our kingdom for a while before heading down.

View of the drained lake next to Camp 10 (photo: Mickey MacKie)

Mickey on top of Taku B (photo: Katie Popyack)

The crew on top of Taku B (photo: Aaron Chesler)

Jen told me that over 100 million years ago, the Pacific plate was pushed, or subducted under another plate. This created melting in the subduction zone and caused a plume of magma to form and rise within Earth’s crust. This plate was simultaneously subducting under the North American plate and caused melt to occur there as well. Eventually, that plate became almost entirely subducted so that the Pacific and North American Plates began to collide. This caused a thickening in the crust and an increase in temperature at depth, generating a melt that mixed with and altered rocks on the surface. These are some of the rocks seen south of Camp 10. Thanks to Jen’s sampling, the rocks on Taku B will soon be analyzed to determine their place in Juneau Icefield’s history. 

Water Through Ice

Water Through Ice

Andrew Hollyday, Middlebury College

How does water move through ice?  I hadn’t considered this question before a recent lecture we had in the library of Camp 17.  In fact, I didn’t even know there was liquid water flowing through what seemed to be very solid ice.  To my surprise and excitement, there’s a whole field within hydrology that explores this phenomenon.  Kiya Riverman, a PhD candidate at Pennsylvania State University, is here at JIRP on faculty this summer.  I met her while hiking up to Camp 17 from Juneau.  As our trail party climbed up the vertical swamp, a steep and wet section of the trail, she shared with us her adventures in Svalbard where she first dove into glaciology and hydrology as an undergraduate.  She’s been studying glacial hydrology in graduate school and is here now excited to share her knowledge with students and apply it to the Juneau Icefield.  As we entered the Ptarmigan Valley, a recently deglaciated cathedral of stone, on our hike up to 17, I examined the evidence of fluvial geomorphology (rivers changing over time) of the stream that flowed through the valley and assumed a similar process when contained within a glacier: the same ox bow cutoffs and meandering curves.  I assumed the water to run along the surface of the ice in small streams just before draining from the glacier.  Kiya’s work is centered on how water moves through ice.  Her eyes lit up as she told us about the intricately beautiful channels through ice that water flows through when draining from a glacier.  It turns out that glaciers, especially those in mountain environments, have complex systems of channels that drain meltwater.  

Kiya giving her glaciohydrology lab in the C-17 library. Photograph by Tadgh Moore.

After arriving at Camp 17, Kiya gave a talk about her research mapping channels through ice, which included inspiring photographs of sub-glacial streams.  There are a few different ways to understand and investigate the channels inside of glaciers; one is climbing through them.  During the presentation, we saw photographs from Iceland in which Kiya, ice axe in hand, was crawling through narrow ice channels.  She showed us images of kickpoints, which are waterfalls contained within glaciers.  

Rappelling into a glacial moulin.  (Photograph by Alexis Fagnoni)

She also diagramed on the whiteboard how small cavities on the surface of a glacier create initially complex stream systems that mold into direct and efficient channels.  She explained how the surface below the glacier, either sediment or bedrock, also influences the formation of glacial streams.  Interestingly, Kiya included an explanation of Cut and Closure streams that erode vertically to the ground and are closed off at the surface over time, creating tear drop-shaped channel profiles.  Furthermore, and less technically, she told us how hydrologists in Greenland had put rubber duckies in these drainage channels and observed them spit out into the ocean, evidence of the connectivity of glacial water systems. 

                Yesterday, while on a traverse on the Lemon Creek Glacier below Camp 17, we skied from areas of thick snow where the initial signals of seasonal drainage are becoming evident (i.e. tree-like networks of depressions descending into the valley) to the ablation zone, where the majority of melt takes place lower on the glacier.  There, wide streams of deep blue water flowed over the ice and down the glacier.  In some places, the channels were deep, undergoing the process of surface closure that Kiya explained in the library.  Water that had traveled the length of the glacier collected here.  Perhaps this place’s dynamic movement compensates for the still white vastness above.  The white vastness of the snowfield condenses into blue streams rushing over dirty blue ice.

According to Kiya, glacial hydrology is an emerging field that has significant impacts on glacier health and dynamics.  Looking out from the cliffs down to the Icefield, she explained to me how she thought Lake Linda, a supraglacial lake below Camp 17, was draining to the south through an unsorted Moraine (deposition of sediment at the margins of a glacier).  I can tell she is always reading landscape through the lens of how water moves through it.  It’s clear she has put her full self into her work and is curious about it.  It is a yearning for this sort of curiosity in something that I believe drew me to a place like the Juneau Icefield.  Considering questions that have never been asked before is an ingrained part of JIRP.  Asking questions that spark more question-asking seems to be fundamental to science—fundamental to explaining how water moves through ice and fundamental to this experience crossing over the icefield to Canada.  

Supraglacial water seen in the ablation zone of the Lemon Creek Glacier. (Photograph by Joel Wilner)

A Lesson of Their Own

A Lesson of Their Own

Jeff Gunderson, College of Wooster

“How is everyone?” my trail leader asked after a long stretch across the entire Lemon Creek Glacier. Perhaps in the royal sense, my answer to that question would be that I had never been better. I mean, I was immersed in a beautiful landscape, surrounded by incredible people with many having expertise in my immediate academic interests. In that moment, however, I simply replied with a resigned ‘so-so’ gesture and continued to trudge on. My feet were sopping wet with freezing cold snow melt, the emerging blisters on the backs of my heels were each the size of a quarter and the windy rain had reduced visibility to a whopping 8 meters in all directions. All I could think in the midst of my disquietude was that I “only had two more hours of this awful slog to go” before I could return to the shelter of camp 17. To put it aptly, I was miserable for I had brought myself lower than did any of my perceived woes. 

Rainy day out on the Lemon Creek Glacier. Photo by author.

I have since received time to reflect and the sun’s rays to rejuvenate (seriously, I’ve never been so happy to see the sun). As such, I have concluded there is something powerful in experiencing your own ugliness. By putting on display the worst possible reality you are capable of propagating, you enable yourself to improve and grow as an individual. Trust me, as someone who nearly ritualistically makes love to the snow by how much he falls on skis, I know now that patience and a positive attitude are crucial to survival on the Juneau Icefield.

Sunny blue sky on the Fourth of July. Photo by author.

I am able to see the beauty inherent to the otherwise ordinary or mundane. Take the Fourth of July, for example. With the humility gained from the day before, falling during ski practice was a pleasure and loads of fun. The sky was a whole new vibrant shade of blue and the sun shone with a brilliance I hadn’t ever taken the time to appreciate. In the evening the most majestic sunset emerged, dousing the sky in strokes of bright orange and pink. Even though I had expected the Juneau Icefield Research program to expand my academic horizons, I feel as the mountains and glaciers are teaching a lesson of their own. As to what that may be I am only beginning to understand. So the next time I am asked “How is everyone?” without regard to my immediate deterrents, I will reply with “great!” and wholeheartedly mean it.

Sunset on the Fourth of July. Photo by author.

Surveying the Lemon Creek Glacier

Surveying the Lemon Creek Glacier

 Isabel Suhr, Lewis & Clark College

A few days ago I got the opportunity to help Scott McGee with the GPS surveying project. Our goal for the day was to complete six profiles on the Lemon Creek Glacier below Camp 17: five transverse profiles (across the glacier) and one longitudinal profile (from the top to the bottom of the glacier). Each profile consists of between fifteen and thirty GPS points, and our task for the day was to take a GPS measurement at each point, to measure the elevation of the glacier there. Combined with previous years’ data, this gives a record of the thickness of the Lemon Creek glacier over time.

To survey the glacier, Scott and Bjorn first set up a GPS base station over a benchmark on the ridge at Camp 17. Since the benchmark had been previously surveyed, we could use its known latitude and longitude to calculate the error in our GPS measurements for the day. The base station then communicates the error correction to the two backpack GPS units we took into the field. With the base station set up, we collected the two GPS backpacks and headed down onto the glacier to begin our day’s work. We split up at the center point, with Bjorn, Ella, and Jolon heading to the lower glacier while Scott, Joel, and I headed toward the upper. 

Joel with the GPS backpack at Lake Linda. Photo: Isabel Suhr

Surveying GPS points is kind of like playing a video game while on skis—really fun, but a little hard to coordinate at first. Once you pick a point to survey, the screen of the GPS tells you which direction you need to go and how many meters away from the point you are. Once you get within a meter or two, your location and the GPS survey point location both show up on the screen, and the goal is to plant the antenna pole in the snow within half a meter of the surveyed point. Once you’ve lined that up, you take a GPS measurement of the elevation of the glacier at that point, and move on to the next point on the profile.

The profiles we surveyed took us all over the upper Lemon Creek glacier, from the middle of the glacier all the way up to the shores of Lake Linda at the very top, and from the flat center to the steep slopes at either side (including one point where we had to scramble up some steep rocks past the edge of the glacier). It was a beautifully clear day, and from high up on the edges of the glacier we could watch the tiny dots of the other survey party making their way across the lower glacier, and of other JIRPers digging mass balance pits and practicing skiing.  In between breaks to appreciate the view and put on more sunscreen, it was easy to get into a rhythm across each transect. Shuffle forward to the next point, plant the antenna pole, level it, take the measurement, and shuffle on to the next point. By the end of the day, the GPS group had shuffled our way across the entire glacier, and had another year’s worth of GPS points to add to the record. And beyond that, we had the chance to learn to use GPS equipment and experience a day of field work!

By the shore of Lake Linda. Photo: Isabel Suhr

Safety First

SAFETY FIRST

Laurel Rand-Lewis, Harvard-Westlake School

Wet, tired, and covered in mud, the whiteness of wind-blown rain obscuring my vision, I finally struggle up and over the ridge and break from the snow onto dark, solid rock. After nearly twelve hours of hiking, I’ve finally made it and finally understand what the staff was saying about the weather up here. Welcome to Cloud 17.

The next day, the weather breaks. It’s perfectly sunny as the remaining trail parties make their ascent, greeted by the weary yet somehow cheerful faces of those who ascended the day before. As soon as the whole group has coalesced, we are thrown headfirst into the meat of the week at Camp 17: safety. Safety training comes at us from all directions- lectures, practice on the Lemon Creek, and discussions over meals back at camp. Rain or shine, safety is our primary focus.

 We learn knots, pulleys, and anchors along with self-arrest and crevasse rescue. The theory morphs into muscle memory as we build 2:1 and 3:1 pulleys over and over and over again. We practice skiing on ropes, run through scenarios in real time and even compete against each other in one on one anchor-building contests to get our speed up. Safety leaders Ibai and Adam call it “character building.”

Students practice making pulleys and anchors on the Lemon Creek Glacier. Photo by Allie Strel.

While practicing on a slope can help simulate a crevasse rescue, there’s nothing like someone falling over the edge of something to really put the pressure on your skills. A quick ski trip further down the Lemon Creek from camp brought us to our test site for the day: The Moat, which is an area of snow that has melted away from the nearby rock and left an overhang which is perfect for our purposes. Roped up into teams of three and four, we take turns falling over the ridge and into the pit, hoping that our team members will arrest our falls and not leave us there to freeze. 

Students hang into The Moat, waiting for their rope team members to pull them out. Photo by Isabel Suhr.

To say that any confidence I had in my rescue skills flew out the window when we got there would not be an understatement, especially when my rope team was picked to be the example group. My position at the center of the rope would be to arrest the fall of the frontward person and hold their weight while the leader, positioned behind me, would build anchors onto which the load would be transferred. I was terrified. How could I, the smallest member of our rope team, be expected to stop the acceleration of my fallen companion and hold them steady for however long it took our leader to build a strong anchor?

 As everyone gathered around to have a good look at our setup, I grew increasingly worried. What if my skis slipped and I ended up dropping Allie into the pit, only to follow her in myself? What would Adrian do if I couldn’t self-arrest in time and ended up falling in too, leaving him as the sole member of our team outside the Moat? My anxious thoughts were stopped abruptly by the Field Staff announcing that we would start the simulation. The beginning went without a hitch- Allie skied straight into the Moat and I managed to stop her fall. My skis were not, however, in the best position, and I could feel all of her weight tugging at my harness. Ignoring Adrian’s frantic anchor building, I focused on keeping my center of balance from being pulled forward. After a minute or two of waiting, I felt a tug on the rope which nearly pulled me off balance. I could hear slight giggling from the surrounding crowd, but I thought nothing of it. The tug was followed in quick succession by more, forcing me to really pull my weight back and reposition myself, all while staying strong enough to not slip. When would Adrian be done with those anchors?

A few minutes and more tugs later, Adrian clipped the load rope into the anchors and I was free. Any anxiety I had about the situation melted away. I had done it! I had kept Allie from falling (further than she initially had, at least) and now all that was left was to help Adrian pull her up. Having my responsibilities lifted off my shoulders allowed me to see the humor in the situation- the Moat was only ten, fifteen feet at maximum, nothing that could really hurt someone if they fell all the way down. Allie was perched only a few feet from the top of it, close enough that Adrian threw her down a granola bar to eat while she was waiting (he missed her horribly). The bar found a new home at the base of the rocks). Once we pulled her out, Allie confided that the tugs I was feeling were her hauling on the rope from where she was positioned, trying to see if I would hold. I understood the laughter now- they must have seen her tugging at the rope and heard my startled yelp after the first jolt. The entire exercise was a success, and I felt like I had really learned something from it. I learned that no matter how terrified you may be by something, keeping a level head and approaching it piece by piece will allow you to not only accomplish your task, but also maybe find something entertaining from it.  

From a Sociologist's Point of View

From a Sociologist’s Point of View

By Elizabeth Perera, DePaul University

July 5th, 2015

Here at Camp 17 the culture is very much one of camaraderie. Because there are 50 people living here, everyone pitches in and helps out. There are chores to do each morning, different people who cook the meals every day (they tell me it can be stressful…), and if you need something, you can almost always borrow it from someone. Everything at camp also has a name, including the food pantry (Tina) and the lost and found box (affectionately referred to as “YDS”, or, “Your Darn Stuff”). The sense of helpfulness and friendliness also means being aware of others’ safety and preventing injuries. If you have any injury, especially blisters, the staff all want you to show them your feet, because “your blister is the group’s blister.” There have already been several minor injuries at this point in the expedition, so knowing that this mentality exists is especially helpful for me, a first time adventurer. 

Camp 17, situated on a ridge between the Lemon Creek Glacier and the Ptarmigan Glacier. Photo by author.

We are also all connected in our new perceptions of “clean.” With all of us living together in close quarters, cleanliness is of the utmost importance. Hand washing is the most important, as is keeping all doors closed to keep the warm air in. Keeping gear, like ropes and crampons, free of dirt is also important. At the same time, the only way to do laundry, shower, or wash hair is by warming up water on the stove and using a washbasin. Consequently, many people up here haven’t taken a complete shower since leaving Juneau (almost a week ago, now). We all have hand sanitizer or wipes for the outhouses, and any other sweat or smells are now part of daily life. On days like yesterday, snow showers are a nice perk of the good weather! Many people don’t even use deodorant or wash their faces.

Our close living quarters. Photo courtesy of Laurel Rand-Lewis.

Mainly what I’ve noticed about the people here is that everyone wants to learn, have fun, and are willing to help, regardless of our different personalities and levels of cleanliness. It doesn’t matter what age we are; most are currently in college but some have already graduated and a few are still in high school. Nonetheless, everyone wants to be useful and to be a part of this fantastic learning experience that is the Juneau Icefield Research Program. We’re all just one big, dirty, happy family doing what we love! 

Ski-ing

Ski-ing

Rachel Medaugh, University of Miami

 Throwing yourself down a mountain over and over doesn’t seem very logical. In fact it may border on the line of insanity, but that’s what I have been doing for the last hour and a half. Moving from one side of the Lemon Creek Glacier to the other and finally on to the Ptarmigan. Attempting pizza turns on tele skis down the massive slope of the Ptarmigan was my breaking point. My butt had spent more time in the snow then in the air and I was done.

Ibai, our resident Spaniard and safety/skill instructor was not letting up. He was going to get our group down that slope come hell or high water. He turned to look back up the slope at my sad self, a few yards up the mountain and said, “ski-ING Rachel! Not ski-stop, its ski-ING. The act of doing something!” I wanted to cry by that point; couldn’t Ibai tell I had nothing left to give? I wanted to sit on the side of that slope and say, “No more! I’m cold, I’m tired, and I want to go back.” 

Ibai, lead safety instructor, from the Basque region of Spain. Photo by Scott Braddock

It would have been great if Ibai had let up on me, let me head back to camp, but that’s not how you JIRP. He forced me to swallow my tears and make it down that slope, and then all the way back up it. Yes, it sucked, but I learned a key JIRP survival skill that day: embracing the suck. You have to learn how to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, so much so that sometimes you even forget what the pleasure of dry socks feels like. But, as long as you just keep doing something, getting back up from your 100th fall that day, learning how ski-ing works, you will become a real JIRPer. No matter how sucky a day can be, the next day can always be better, and pushing through whatever hardship faces you during your time on the Juneau Icefield is what makes you a better person. So even if you’re stuck ski-stopping for a while, have faith, you will eventually start ski-ing. 

Ski practice on the Lemon Creek Glacier, below Observation Peak. Photograph by Tristan Amaral.

GPS Surveying at the Oozy Flats

GPS Surveying at the Oozy Flats

Adrian Peter, University of Berne; Allie Strel, Technical University of Munich; Lara Hughes-Allen, University of Southern California

                  On Saturday, June 27, the Taku Crew (Adrian Peters, Allie Strel, Björn Dulleck, James Headen and Lara Hughes-Allen) left Juneau for a short excursion to the terminus of the Taku Glacier.  Headed up by long-time JIRPer, Scott McGee, the purpose of the trip was to collect GPS points along the front edge of the glacier to compare to surveys from previous years.  Unlike the majority of the glaciers in Southeast Alaska, the Taku has been advancing in recent decades.  Tracking changes in the position of the terminus is a part of understanding the behavior of this glacier.

                  To get to the base of the glacier we travelled by float plane to the Taku Lodge and were taken by boat down to a grassy area near the terminus.  Our campsite was a beautiful spot by the river, with lupines all around and the Taku rising behind the meadows.

Björn with our floatplane before departing from Juneau. Photo by Allie Strel

The Taku Glacier terminus from the float plane.Photo by Allie Strel

One of the boats got stuck in a shallow section of the river.  With such a high sediment load, navigating the river channels can be a challenge. Photo by James Headen.

Our campsite near the terminus. Photo by Lara Hughes-Allen.

We spent two days collecting data along the terminus using survey grade GPSs.  The environment at the edge of the glacier seemed surreal and the landscape looked absolutely foreign and barren, especially when it was foggy.   At times the place looked like a TV set straight out of a Star Trek episode.  Most notable though was the mud.  An abundance of mud.  Lakes of mud.  Sinky, mucky, liquidy mud.   Trying to navigate through the mud between our GPS points led to both frustration and hilarity.  On the map the area is labelled “oozy flats” and after two days of first-hand experience with the ooziest places, we can all agree it is a fitting name.

                  Lara with the survey equipment near the ice terminus. Photo by Allie Strel.

Life at the Oozy Flats. Photo by Lara Hughes-Allen.

With good weather we were able to finish the survey in two days and therefore had time on our last day to explore the glacier for some crampon practice and a great view.  In the evening we were picked up and boated back up river.  The great staff at the Taku Lodge fed us cookies and coffee and even set us up with a place to stay so that we didn’t have to camp for the night.  Many thanks to the Taku Lodge for their friendly hospitality.

                         Scott and James on the Taku Glacier. Photo by Allie Strel

A preliminary look at the GPS data we collected shows that there has been no significant advance of the terminus since measurements taken in 2013 and 2014.  It isn’t known if this is indicative of the end of the advance phase for this glacier or just a temporary stagnation.  Future surveys may help to answer this question.

                  On the morning of July 1, we flew back to Juneau and spent the day dealing with logistics.  The next day we made the hike up to Camp 17 to meet up with the rest of the JIRPers.  It was a cold, windy, rainy day but we arrived at “Cloud 17” in good spirits.  Thanks to Scott for navigating us up the Ptarmigan Glacier in low visibility.

                  Overall, it was a great side trip and we were grateful to have had the opportunity.  To sum it all up:  the cheese was mac.

The Taku Crew and the Oozy Flats. Photo by Scott McGee.