FFNL

Kristen Lyda Rees

University of Alaska Southeast

Throughout the process of becoming a FGER at JIRP, I have learned many things. Such as the true extent of the scientific community’s love of acronyms. Therefore, this blog is titled ‘FFNL’. FFNL is representative of Family, Friendship, Nunataks, and Loyalty.

Long ago, banners and standards were raised in progressions of your family. Crests and flags were a reflection of who you were loyal to and what you fought for. We don’t necessarily all walk around with a standard blowing in the wind before us, but we often wear the banner of others. If we all looked down at the clothes we’re wearing and the stickers we put on our water bottles, we’d see the labels and logos of a company, corporation, or organization whose material products we use and believe in. This is not a bad thing, but I believe it is an important insight to recognize which kickball team we are playing for, whom we are showing allegiance to and whose battles we are fighting in. Our friends and teams are things we get to mindfully select in this life.  I hope the staff and faculty all look at their JIRP badges and feel proud of what they’re fighting for.

Kristen Lyda Rees and JIRP friends in the Camp 17 cook shack. Photo by M. Beedle.

Where we come from and who our family is are two things we don’t have the privilege of choosing in life. Our parents play a massive role in forming us as citizens of society and organisms with a niche in the ecosystem of Earth. I could write an equal and separate paper with respect towards the lessons I’ve learned from my mother. She is a glorious reflection of humanity and I owe her much, but I’m going to talk about my father for a minute. A few days ago, I got news my dad had had a seizure and lost motor skills and sensation in the left side of his body. Yesterday, he went into brain surgery to remove an egg sized tumor growing on the surface of his brain. He is doing very well and I even spoke to him for a few minutes. He is proud to be able to touch his finger to his nose. He should be leaving the hospital in the next day or two.

In Terry Tempest William’s ‘Refuge’ she speaks of growing up in Utah within the cultural bounds of the Mormon Church and her ties to the natural realm of the high desert.

“It is a well-known story in the Desert West, ‘The day we bombed Utah’ or more accurately, the years we bombed Utah: above ground atomic testing in Nevada took place from January 27th 1951 through July 11th 1962. Not only were the winds blowing north, covering ‘low-use segments of the population’ with fallout and leaving sheep dead in their tracks, but the climate was right. The United States of the 1950’s was red, white, and blue. The Korean War was raging, McCarthyism was rampant. Ike was it, and the cold war was hot. If you were against the nuclear testing, you were for a communist regime.”

My father and many of the people who were born and raised in small, rural communities of southern Utah in the fifties and sixties are what are called ‘Downwinders’.

Devon Rees is an old farmer, a wizard with any tool, and he can fix anything. I owe most of what I know about hard work, loyalty, self-sufficiency, and a sensitivity of nature to him. I spent a great deal of my childhood living on a 1000 acre ranch in south central Utah; following him around, hauling hay, learning the effects of the changing seasons, being assistant flashlight holder, feeding animals, and watching him to see what it meant to contribute to the bigger picture. A hammer is a hammer, a nail is a nail and the horse corral is not going to fix itself. All experiences that have molded me and my values as an adult. Now that I have queries and a path of my own, we do not agree on many things.  He is a vestige of a different age. Born in Richfield, Utah on March 6th 1950, he was raised to see the world and the cosmos in a certain way. Not the wrong way, as I’ve learned, just a certain way. I myself believe in science and the power of the human potential where he believes in a magnificent and benevolent god that created the universe; he is a loyal soldier of God and has taught me how and whom I choose to owe my allegiance to with care. I am a loyal barnacle.

Given the circumstances, I didn’t know how to share this life experience with my JIRP compatriots, but this seemed like a good way to express my gratitude for the support and love I’ve received from my community here at Camp 10. It has been a constant learning experience and I’m grateful for the lessons I learn from everyone. I thought I’d be coming up here to the Icefield to collect the stories of others and here I am, sharing mine with them instead. There is a saying ‘show me your friends and I will show you your future.’ Being a part of JIRP, I’ve seen many beautiful reflections of humanity and different ways of being alive. We cannot as individuals, experience all the same life paths, our time here isn’t long enough. But that’s what friends are for: sharing our lives with others makes our own and each other’s far richer and more valuable.

". . . beneath all the ice, all nunataks are connected." A team of JIRPers crosses Taku Glacier. Photo by M. Beedle.

My favorite wall quote is in the Red Dog(outhouse), “No man is a Nunatak.” Nunataks are rocky islands that dot the frozen landscapes of icefields and icesheets. They are the sharp, lonely mountain tops that poke out above the thousands of meters of snow and ice that separate them. It is important to remember that beneath all the ice, all nunataks are connected. We are all the same continent separated by socially constructed illusions of differences between us, the world over. As we learn more about the reality we share and broaden our sense of place in our environment, remember we are all in part of the same whole.  We are united under a shared vulnerability. There is no ‘Us vs Them’. The problems we face on one side of the planet aren’t THEIR problems, they’re OUR problems. As we advance our scientific knowledge and technology, we must work to develop the connections between us as a species and as friends.

Dendrochronology - Stories Told By Tree

Dendrochronology – Stories Told By trees

Alexandra Kessler, University of Zurich

Trees are everywhere, in our backyards, framing streets, and in forests all over the world. Most of them outlive us by many years and then some, remembering environmental events much more accurately then we could remember a meal from last week. Through the science of dendrochronology, we can access the huge archive of information stored in each and every tree. We start with an introduction into a tree’s life:

The life of a tree starts by fighting against huge odds to be able to survive the first couple of years. They get eaten by animals, attacked by fungi and have to fight against the environment on top of that: a roasting sun, the cold in the winter or the wind (with razor sharp snow in cold climate) pressing them to the ground.

A stem-layered spruce with dead "vertical leaders" (places it tried to become an upright tree and lost) along the (comparatively) very old stem. Back at Camp 17, the JIRP team worked on samples from dead sections like these. Photo courtesy of Jeremy Littell.

The year of a seasonally growing tree is very busy: Trees grow every spring as fast as they can to repair seasonal winter damage, regenerate, grow taller and, if they still have some energy left, they grow in width. All of their energy for this must be made from photosynthesis (using sunlight to produce sugar). Just below the bark they grow long cells with thin walls, creating a light brown ring. Trees try to make the most of summer months when they get the most energy from the sun, hoping not to run out of water or get too hot. During autumn, darker and shorter cells with more lignum (the material making wood) grow denser than the spring cells.  Then the tree shuts down, preparing for the cold by reducing the amount of water in the cells and adding sugar to lower the freezing temperature of their cells.

One of these pairs of light and dark cells is called a tree ring, representing one year of growth. If the tree has a good year, it may use the increased energy to produce broader rings. If the tree has a bad year, it may produce either narrow rings or no rings at all, as most or all its energy goes into repair and regeneration.  The amount of energy a tree has to use depends on regional effects, like changes in temperature and precipitation, and local effects that only impact a few trees, such as water or mineral shortage, longer snow cover in concave slopes and competition between nearby trees. Counting these rings tells us how old the tree is, and measuring their width tells us how it has fared over the years. The tree ring succession acts like a barcode and can be extended by looking at older trees or trees which have been preserved in swamps or in lateral moraines of glaciers (see figure 1). Using tree rings like this, we can reconstruct a very long record of tree rings going back 11,000 years. If you find a tree in a swamp for example you could find out its age by going into the international database of tree ring records and compare its barcode to the record.

Drs. Catharine White and Jeremy Littell hike back to Camp 17 along Blackerby Ridge during the 'Blackerby Ridge Botany Bonanza'. Photo courtesy of Matt Beedle.

Dendrochronology puts these barcodes of life into context. During bad years, trees can be limited by water, temperature, snow cover, or other variables. Thus, the ups and downs can be correlated with events like temperature fluctuations. The trees can therefore give us valuable information about the climate of the past. By comparing trees from all over the world, we are able to find a common climate signal, telling the story of global climate fluctuations through time. We can observe large-scale events like atmospheric warming, as the trees have this information imprinted in their cell tissue. Even the tree in your backyard can tell you how the weather has been of every year it has survived, its memory written into the tree rings.

On the way up to Camp 17, Jeremy Littell (USGS Research Scientist and JIRP Faculty) and other JIRPers collected samples from trees near tree line. Jeremy would drill a tube into the tree, which was about half a centimeter in diameter (quarter an inch). These core samples from living and dead trees were then treated with sand paper to make the tree rings more visible. Under the microscope we could then count the number of tree rings. One tree with the thickness of a lower arm was 100 years old, that made it quite hard to tell the rings apart because they were that near to each other. The oldest one of the collected samples was about 200 years old.

So why do people working on a glacier care about trees? Trees and glaciers do actually respond similarly to the climate. When there is a year with a lot of snow and is cold, a glacier is happy. A tree however will be freezing and sad, creating only a small ring. Therefore, a glacier’s mass balance and the tree’s growth patterns, represented in the thickness of the tree ring, correspond. This means, that we can reconstruct a glacier’s mass balance in a time when there was no JIRP around to measure it.

Eric Kittilsby, Kellie Schaefer, Catharine White, Alexandra Kessler and Jeremy Littell work with their samples and field notes after returning from Blackerby Ridge. Photo courtesy of Matt Beedle.

-Kessler Alexandra with the help of Jeremy Littell, thanks for Molly this is now in actual English, ☺ and thanks to Annie... it did not get too long!

The Moment It Hit Me

The Moment It Hit Me

DJ Jarrin, Colorado Mesa University

    Throughout all our lives we are always anticipating things. We are always planning, hoping, and preparing so when a big moment finally comes, we might find ourselves absolutely ready.

    When it came to JIRP I found myself anticipating and planning unlike ever before because this journey is unlike anything I have ever done. I found myself with a huge laundry list of supplies, most of which I had never used before in my life. The excitement for the unknown, supported by the pile of mysterious equipment, heightened my anticipation for what was to come out on the icefield this summer. For the months leading up to my departure, I could only imagine how life would be out on the icefield, how would everyone get along, and, most importantly, what would we eat. Every day I could feel my anticipation intensify and my wonder grow.

    The day was finally here. It was June 24th, and I was beginning the long four-hour drive from my home to the Denver International Airport with my girlfriend. Between driving and thinking about the amazing adventure that was about to take place, I couldn’t help but memorize the outline of my girlfriend’s face. I couldn’t escape the realization that while I’m out here following a dream, she will be at home bearing the emotions of an all too brief good-bye. She drove off and as I watched her disappear on the lonely airport road, a realization hit me.

    This dream, the uncertainty of what lies ahead, was all real now. There was no turning back as I made my way through the airport. I felt ever so close to the wild unknown we know today as JIRP. For in a few short hours I would be landing in Juneau, Alaska, and my eight week journey would officially begin.

    The wheels touched down and the brakes compressed. The hatch opened, and as I stepped off the plane, I took a moment to collect my thoughts and take in a deep breathe. I’m here, I made it, let the adventure begin.

The mighty Taku Towers. Photo courtesy of PBJ Photograohy

Outhouse on the Icefield

Outhouse on the Icefield

Tae Hamm, Lawrence University

    As one who has volunteered for outhouse cleaning more than any 2016 JIRP participants thus far, I am quite keen on the politics behind outhouses; you MUST flip the sign to “occupied”, “Het”(Russian for “No”) or simply “No” and you MUST lock the door once you are done with the business. Inside, you MUST remember that we are not technically in a restroom, but rather an outhouse, which means that the toilet you are sitting on is a non-flushing, drop toilet that requires tender love and care. This means throwing toilet paper in the plastic bag sitting next to you, not in the toilet itself. Lastly, hand-sanitizer is not an option, but an obligation, for the sake of the entire camp’s health.

Outhouses on the icefield have history and characters, providing a window into the history of JIRP. Outhouses, among all the facilities in the camps, stand out the most with their extravagant names and omnipresent aroma. Camp 17 has two outhouses, one with a divider (the “Doublewide”) and one without (the “Venus Fly Trap”, a two-seater). Camp 10 hosts a total of four outhouses, all varying in size: Petunia, Red Dog, Dream Land, and the Bomb Shelter (once a storage for explosives as implied by its name). Some of these outhouses were among the first built edifices on the Icefield, at the advent of camp construction; in fact, the oldest building on the Icefield, Petunia, was built in 1949 by R.A. Milan. Although the stories behind many outhouses now remain as urban (or icefield) legend, they are integral parts of the JIRP camp history. Outhouses are shelters for those seeking for a little break from all the group works, but they also bring people together—sometimes quite literally.

The Dreamland outhouse at Camp 10. Photo courtesy of PBJ Photography.

Outhouses at Camp 17 specifically have been a topic of debate for many JIRPers: the exponential relationship between the camp population and the intensity of aroma in the outhouses, favorite quotes in the Doublewide, and so on.  Most people could only imagine two people casually having a conversation in a two-seater bathroom without a divider, but JIRPers at Camp 17 can experience this first-hand in the Venus Flytrap. The Venus Flytrap offers an awkward experience with its two toilet seats located next to one another. It gives you an illusion that there is privacy, but there really is none once you enter; it may be just a matter of time before a familiar face rushes into the Flytrap. Surprisingly, not many JIRPers are uncomfortable with such encounters; spending every minute together in a small camp community naturally allows one to be—simply put—low maintenance.

The Doublewide, located in front of the library at Camp 17, presents us with wall quotes dating back to 2001 It also presents us with a magnificent view of Lemon Creek Glacier, where JIRPers have their safety training for a week and a half. Here, we can take a peek at Matt Beedle’s (academic director of JIRP) past: “no, no, no, less cool, more scientific”. Dr. Beedle wrote this quote he remembers hearing as a JIRPer. Legend has it that the quote was an instruction from Jeff Barbee, a photographer and staff at the time, to then high-school student Beedle. Barbee was taking a picture of Matt at the Southwest Branch of the Taku Glacier and yelled this quote, requesting a more “scientific pose”, with his hand on top of his head as if he were looking out across the glacier. Like Dr. Beedle who may have been digging a mass balance snow pit on Taku Glacier, I, after a day of digging the same pits on the same glacier, am reminded of a quote written on the Doublewide: “’It’s better to go skiing and think of God, then to go to church and think of sport’- Fridtjof Nansen”.

Camp 10 with the Taku Range in the mist beyond. Photo courtesy of PBJ Photography.

In Camp 17, I would often take a moment in the Doublewide to read the quotes on the wall and appreciate the view outside. When you are exhausted from the day’s work, it’s sometimes hard to recognize the astonishing view surroundings us every second. Outhouses are shelters for me to take a break and absorb the magnificent beauty of the Icefield. It shows the history of JIRP, and the course of JIRPers coming together as a group. Being a deadhead (a diehard fan of Grateful Dead), I try to revive myself at the end of an exhausting day with yet another Doublewide quote: “Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile”. And after all, “not all who wander are lost, some are JIRPers”.

Skiing from Scratch

Skiing from Scratch

Louise Borthwick, Edinburgh University

I’ve chosen a slightly misleading title here because I have actually skied before. I learned on downhill skis on the dry ski slope near my home in Edinburgh, Scotland. This slope was made of a mat which was sprayed with water and my parents used to say if you could ski there you could ski anywhere. Coming into JIRP I hadn’t skied for about 10 years but I thought it’s just like riding a bike right, it’ll all come back to me, it’ll be fine.

So when we headed out from Camp 17 for our first ski lesson on Lemon Creek Glacier I didn’t raise my hand as a novice skier and soon found myself a little out of my depth and I was beginning to think maybe I couldn’t ski quite as well as I imagined I could. This made me realize how long it had been since I had learned a new skill from scratch and how it felt to be so hopelessly bad at something despite trying my best. Over the next few days I chose groups better suited to my ability and focused on improving my basic technique in the hope it would make me more confident. It did help and I felt good going down the shallower slope on Lemon Creek with pizza turns.

Tools of the trade resting on the flanks of the Staff Shack at Camp 17. Photo courtesy of PBJ Photography.

The next step in our skiing progression was to move to the slope on the other side of Camp 17 on the Ptarmigan Glacier. This was significantly steeper and as we put our skis on at the top I could feel my heart rate increasing before we’d even moved. The plan was to side hill down, which means going across the slope and so reducing the gradient. When we’d gone as far as we could one way we made a kick turn (or switchback) which involved standing on one ski while rotating the other one 180 degrees (or as close as possible) then transferring the weight to that ski and bringing the first ski round so we were facing the opposite direction. We’d then head in that direction till we had to do another kick turn. It sounds simple but I was always very conscious of the steep slope dropping away on my downhill side and standing on one ski didn’t feel the most stable. It was unnerving to say the least and I was soon falling over, even when I was only trying to stand still. It was a frustrating experience and I felt like I wasn’t getting any better. Catherine suggested leaning into the slope and Ibai had us lifting up and down our uphill ski to emphasize we should have our weight on our downhill ski. With these tips I made it down, with a few more falls, we then used our skins to go back up.

Louise and her trail party skiing the traverse from Camp 17 to Camp 10. Photo courtesy of PBJ Photography.

After a few more days practice the morning came for the traverse to Camp 10, and with it a chance to put my newly learned skiing skills to test. I went with the option of walking down the steepest bit of slope on the side of the Lemon and felt things were going pretty well once I got on my skis. The snow was very hard because it was so early and cold, and it was full of sun cups so it was very bumpy, but I stayed upright. When we got to the steeper bottom part I had a series of fall down/get up moments and Kirsten took my backpack down to the blue ice (thanks Kirsten!). I was feeling pretty despondent but I’d been told Lemon Creek was one of the hardest bits of skiing of the day and that kept me going.

The author, third from left (standing), ready to depart Camp 17 with her trail party...the first team to head out on the traverse this season! Photo courtesy of PBJ Photography

We covered a lot of different terrain on the traverse, it seemed mainly uphill, and on the next bit of descent on skis down into Death Valley Ibai suggested I keep my skins on to aid control. I did and it was great; harder work but I didn’t fall. Once we got down to the flat bottom of Death Valley I took my skins off and it was honestly the most amazing feeling to be able to glide again. I was kicking and gliding along and Kirsten and Mo had their music playing on speakers and it was a very surreal experience to be skiing across a glacier in the middle of nowhere signing along to music. Finally all the practice had come together and I felt the freedom of skiing for the first time.

Louise enjoying a hard-won rest with fellow JIRPers at the Norris Cache, halfway through the ski traverse from Camp 17 to Camp 10. Photo courtesy PBJ Photography.

JIRPers: From Different to Dynamic, Thanks to a Glacier

JIRPers: From Different to Dynamic, Thanks to a Glacier

Molly Peek, Smith College

As JIRP students, we come to Juneau with a few heavy bags and maybe a bit of nervousness. We were thrown into a group of 32 students from all over the world, all hoping that the gaps between us weren’t large enough to fall through. While fresh off the plane, my nervousness could be understood; as I sit at Camp 10 today, surrounded by people from Juneau to North Carolina to Switzerland, common ground seems less important than ever before. We are all sharing a glacier, after all, and isn’t that enough? JIRP draws students from all walks of life and from all over the world, and that expansive group, concentrated into tiny camps on islands of rock in fields of snow, matters in the science we do, enriching the questions we ask.

Surrounded by such individuals, I have found myself in the middle of a group with such varied backgrounds and interests that I wonder how it is we all found our way here. Many would consider this place to be the middle of nowhere, but somehow we have all decided that this piece of nowhere is scientifically significant enough to explore and to investigate.

JIRP Field Staff, Matt Pickart, Allie Strel, and Annie Boucher share a laugh at Camp 17. Photo courtesy of PBJ Photography

So here we are, two weeks in, excited about glacier travel and sunshine. As we transition to the part of the season that focuses on science, however, it becomes clear that JIRP isn’t just about skiing with your friends and talking about your favorite types of cheese.  After Juneau Week, Safety Week at Camp 17, and a long traverse to Camp 10, it is time to focus on what we all came here to do, and leave cheese conversations to long traverses as field work takes precedence.  

Outside of lectures and research proposals, however, I find myself learning about much more than glaciers. On the long (and incredibly, stupefying beautiful) slog from Camp 17 to Camp 10, we discussed geophysics and research in Antarctica in between favorite books and widespread dislike of Twizzlers (personally, I stand by them). I have talked about the struggles of chemistry and academia at colleges around the country, trail etiquette on East and West Coasts, and how the natural world is amazingly interconnected with every aspect of our lives, linking us to each other in more ways than seem possible. Admittedly, most of these conversations were sandwiched between more poop stories than I have ever heard in my life. However, conversations always come back to the glacier, and how it connects us as humans from different cultures and interests.

The glacier links us as students to staff and faculty, and every way in between as we learn together about the new surprises of the changing landscape. The trail conversations we strike up connect us JIRPers as humans outside of the Juneau Icefield (which, although it is hard to believe right now, does still exist) as we discuss our homes and schools, how we ended up here and where we came from, and where we want to go. These stories also connect us as scientists, as we come out of our own small worlds to see how our own relationships to glaciers are completely different from those of others. These realizations are becoming increasingly important as our world changes rapidly, with the environment driving upheaval in all disciplines. Changes in climate on the east coast cannot be divorced from events happening to glaciers here in Alaska. If we are to investigate changes in the environment with an aim to make society better, we must work with people from a variety of locations and experiences and integrate the struggles and opportunities from all parts of the world.

Tiny camps on islands of rock in fields of snow. Photo courtesy of PBJ Photography.

In my view, the key here is people. People ask the questions, do the research, and take the hit from changes in climate and miscommunication. But as we learned in elementary school, every person is different. We are all prone to different thoughts and actions based on our unique experiences. It is important that JIRP brings people together from different backgrounds and experiences, but there is still more to be done, both at JIRP and elsewhere. Differences are important and useful, and the questions that come from those differences meeting in a common space, scientific and otherwise, must be honored and cultivated for lasting change. Learning about your research partner’s background is important to the work we do, because it brings context to the study. Why do we ask the questions we ask? Why are they different from our neighbor’s? The long trail conversations count, even those involving poop stories.

The author, in yellow with cup in hand, sharing stories in camp with fellow JIRPers. Photo courtesy of PBJ Photography.

Plant Succession Along the Lemon Creek Trail

Plant Succession Along the Lemon Creek Trail

Mo Michels, University of Alaska Southeast

In our first daylong hike of the summer traverse, we JIRPers experience a transition of plant succession that in other places may spread across entire regions. What may take days to traverse in other parts of the world we hike through in a matter of hours, traveling from where coastal estuaries meet the ocean through mature forests, on through young forest, up into the wet vertical swampy stands that in turn bring us to tree line, and on and on into alpine meadows and only recently vegetated landscape of lichen and mosses. The uniqueness of this journey through time is due in part to the landscape of Southeast Alaska. Magnificent moving masses of ice excavated the landscape not long ago in the geologic past. Moving away from the coastline fjords and channels that harbor coastal towns, the ice crept back into the mountains leaving in its wake a succession of plant life. With the hike that JIRPers take up the Lemon Creek Trail to approach Camp 17 we were fortunate enough to see an abbreviated history of this process within a span of mere hours.

Driving to the trailhead was truly the beginning of this journey. Looking out the windows of the van, we saw a tidal estuary full of ducks, tideland plants, and grasses.

Having arrived at the trailhead, we marched through older and established coastal temperate rainforest. The over story of Sitka Spruce and Hemlock loomed above us, their towering trunks reaching over a hundred feet into the sky. The canopy filtered out the majority of the light, but Devil’s Club and other mid layer plants intermingled with the giants. In the gaps left by the fallen trees, the underbrush prospered, reaching up from mother logs to take advantage of these small breaks in the otherwise shading canopy. Passing through the mature forest, we made our way along a section of the riparian zone next to Lemon Creek. Here we went through a stand of alders, much younger and more uniform in diameter and spacing, their branches ending all around the same height and a layer of moss coating the smooth bark of their trunks. The only other obvious foliage were hemlock seedlings interspersed among the alders. In time, as this forest matures, the hemlocks may grow and dominate the upper canopy, shading out the alders.

As we left the riverbank, we skirted the edges of an active gravel quarry. The alien presence of trucks and heavy equipment was unavoidable and the anthropogenic influences on the morphology of the river were apparent where we walked. The edges of the stream were barren, recently excavated and flattened, and there was a manufactured hillside that was green with some recently sprayed fertilizing agent.

Crossing back out of the riparian zone, we passed through the mature forest before our journey took us into an area of wet soil pockets and swampy ground. Here the sedges, orchids and skunk cabbage prospered. This part of the trail went up for a couple kilometers before flattening briefly into meadows spotted with muskeg ponds and mud pits. All kinds of blueberry bushes flourished along the edges of the trail, heavy with fat juicy berries. Only after picking a few hundred did we began to notice the subtle differences between the two species, the blue and red huckleberries.

We traveled onward, delayed by berry picking only long enough to wish we had a bucket to save them. Each bush we passed taunted us with its burden, until we finally found ourselves leaving tree line to enter an alpine meadow. The tall trunks of spruce and hemlock and the trill of birds were replaced by the buzzing of fat bumblebees as they flitted between grasses to wild geranium, to alpine lupine, to dwarf fireweed.

As we hiked ever higher, the greenery changed once more. This time the darker green of mosses and lichens replaced the lighter green alpine grasses. These mosses and lichens mark the first succession of plant life onto a glacially carved landscape. Small primary successional plants break down rock, adding limiting nutrients like nitrogen to the ecologic system and allowing for later successional plants like the ones in the alpine meadow to come in and take root.

Eventually, as we climbed even higher, this low lying, hardy, vegetation gave way in some places to exposed, barren rock, and then to actual ice. At this point Camp 17 emerged from the clouds and the Lemon Creek and Ptarmigan Glaciers marked the end of successional vegetation changes. As the glaciers continue their retreat and the ice melts away to expose more bare rock,  the lichens and mosses will begin to take hold and continue the upward march of plant life towards the ridge line.

Author Mo Michels on the ski traverse from Camp 17 to Camp 10. Photo courtesy of PBJ Photography

Berry Picking in the Tongass

Berry Picking in the Tongass

Shawnee Reynoso, Sonoma State University

On the morning of June 30th the seven of us in trail party number three set out to hike to the Juneau Icefield. Little did I know this hike would be filled with laughs, challenges, empowering moments, and a sense of accomplishment. In our ten hour journey to camp we found ourselves pulled away from the trail by the lush wild blueberry bushes that ran alongside. Mo and Stan are the two members of our trail party that took advantage of these lush bushes.  They even began to collect the blueberries in a water bottle to save for the next couple of days on the Icefield. These blueberry adventures added about an hour or two extra to our trip, but we knew with every accomplishment along the trail came the promise of more blueberries. From this point on our group quickly became known as BAA (Blueberry Addicts  Anonymous).

This addiction became progressively pronounced as we trekked through the vertical swamp. The swamp appeared as we gained in elevation. It seemed the higher we went, the deeper it got. They continued to pick berries as I wrestled with trees in an attempt to free myself from the quicksand-like patches of mud. The swamp was unforgiving and allowed little room for error. With one overly confident step I found myself two feet into the mud. As I freed my foot I realized that only a sock remained where my shoe once was. In an attempt to regain my balance I stepped beside my stuck shoe and watched as the mud began to swallow my shoe. After a vicious tug of war with the mud my boot finally came out.

That night we slept about a two hour hike away from our final destination. As we made our journey up the snowy slopes the next morning I was robbed of my breath and overcome with emotion. As I trekked up this steep snowy mountain side I took a moment to take in the view. Snow topped mountains rising above a glacier, various waterfalls, and a lake. At the bottom of the mountain lay another lake, and beyond that green meadows with beautiful wildflowers and a river. As I looked up I saw the flag to our final destination atop the mountainside. Then I flashed back to every decision I had made leading up to this moment. Every TV show, every movie I had seen, every talk I had listened to, or inspiring person I had met and thought “Wow. I want to do that. Someday I will do that.” That moment was now. At this very moment I was that person in the movie or giving the talk that would inspire people to get out of their comfort zone and never stop striving to experience life, regardless of how out of reach those wants may seem. I am a reminder to myself and others to never deem experiences impossible but instead to hold onto them and never stop working towards them. Exhausted but not defeated I was proud. I had hiked over ten miles, gained 4600 feet in elevation, survived the vertical swamp, picked berries and exhausted every muscle in my body to get here. I was the person who could inspire others through my experience. I had made it. I was here, where I had told myself since I was a child I would be someday. I held back tears of joy as my heart skipped a beat. With the widest grin on my face I continued my traverse up the mountain. I had made it, we had made it, and it’s only the beginning. 

Author Shawnee Reynoso heading out on the Camp 17 to Camp 10 traverse. Photo courtesy of PBJ Photography.

The Oozy Flats

The Oozy Flats

by Cezanna Semancher (Principia College) and Alex Burkhart (Willamette University)

While learning how to ascend ropes using prusiks in the Rock Dump Climbing Gym in Juneau, Matt Beedle, our Academic Director, pulled us aside (Alex, C, Olivia, and Evan) and asked us if we would be interested in taking an excursion to the Taku terminus for GPS Surveying. Now you may ask, what is the Taku Terminus? Well, the Taku Glacier is one of the few advancing glaciers, however, in recent years GPS surveying has identified it to be stagnant, and perhaps receding. If you can imagine glaciers as rivers, gradually meandering through and carving out valleys, the terminus of a glacier is equivalent to the delta, or end of the river.

Stemming from the Taku Glacier, Hole-in-the-Wall Glacier appears below us as we flew above in the float plane. Here you can see the river like characteristic of the glacier as it flows through the valley surrounding it.

Our reaction to this offer from Matt was of course thrilled, yet we didn’t quite know what was in store for our upcoming three-day adventure. From staffers who had gone on the trip in years past we were told four things – 1) bring extra food, 2) there is no coffee, pack your own, 3) there will be superfluous amounts of mud to trudge through, and 4) there will be more spam than you would ever want or need. Knowing all of this, of course we took the offer. The next day, we found ourselves packing bear capsules into our packs and then loading onto a float plane in Gastineau Channel near downtown Juneau. Our pilot Al, a longtime JIRPer, flew us over expansive glaciers and other extraordinary topographic features before making our way to the Taku Lodge. From there, we took a flat bottomed river boat downriver to our rugged wilderness campsite that was only a few minutes’ walk away from the Taku terminus. We set up camp and ducked into our tents away from the swarm of mosquitoes and no-see-ums.

The glacier’s complex hydrology system displays a waterfall emerging near the terminus.

The next day we oriented ourselves with our GPS units and proceeded to the terminus through a patch of lupins. Upon arrival, we split up into two teams: Alex and Evan went with Scott McGee (a former JIRP student and one of the faculty for the Taku Surveying Project) and Cézanna and Olivia surveyed with Uwe. Throughout the day, we took GPS waypoints and collected data (see blog by Evan and Olivia titled “Taku Turmoil”) of the location of the terminus. However, the majority of our time was spent on route-finding through the complex labyrinth of the Taku Glacier’s terminal moraines of quicksand-like glacial silt and deceiving glacial runoff streams. These tricky areas are better known as the Oozy Flats. This was likely the most challenging and thus, most exciting part of the trip. It really brought about a lot of camaraderie and lightheartedness to our group dynamic. Are you at all stuck on the word “moraine”? If you’re not familiar with the term, a moraine is the deposit of rock and dirt from the glacier that forms piles at the terminus of an advancing glacier.

The Taku terminus lies to the left as Olivia and Uwe navigate across the terminal moraine.

When we had completed our surveying, we awaited our boats’ arrival. Once loaded up and about 15 feet away from the shore, our boat got stuck in the shallow, muddy waters. Enthusiastically, we rolled up our pants and jumped into the glacial runoff water (which is quite cold) to reduce this insupportable displacement of the boat so it could float out to the main channel. After a successful second departure, we motored upriver to the Taku Lodge where we would pitch our tents for the night. Welcomed with a warm dinner, ginger snap cookies, a cozy fireplace, and a mellow bear, we reminisced and laughed over our newfound experiences and were grateful to take part in such a rare endeavor.

Taku Turmoil

Taku Turmoil

by Evan Koncewicz (St. Lawrence University) and Olivia Truax (Amherst College)

Over the past 50 years, glaciers around the world have been in sustained retreat in response to climatic warming. However, a small number of glaciers are advancing. At first glance this may seem like a contradiction, but this is because glacial dynamics are affected by an interplay of factors in addition to climate (glacial geometry, nature of the landscape they are in, among others). In 1946 JIRP was founded in part to study a particularly complex glacier in Southeast Alaska, the Taku Glacier, which was steadily advancing even as most other Alaskan Glaciers were in retreat. During the first week of JIRP 2016 we spent two days mapping the terminus of Taku Glacier with high precision GPS but, before we get in to what we found, a quick word on how glaciers work.

Glaciers, whether they are advancing or retreating, are always flowing downhill. Glaciers are formed when snow falls in the winter and doesn’t melt in the summer – the weight of this accumulation adds up each year and compacts the underlying snow into ice. This ice grows in mass, responds to gravity and begins to flow downhill. The area where the winter snow persists year round and adds to the overall mass of the glacier is called the accumulation zone. Downslope, where all of the snow and some of the underlying ice that has flowed down from a higher elevation melts in the summer, this section of the glacier is called the ablation zone. If the amount of melt lost in the summer in the ablation zone is equal to the amount of snow gained in the accumulation zone during the winter the glacier will remain the same size. If the amount of snow that falls in the accumulation zone is larger than the amount lost in the summer the glacier terminus will advance. On the other hand, if ice melt outpaces the accumulation and downhill flow of ice, the glacier will retreat.

Olivia Truax and Cézy Semnacher taking a GPS point at the boundary between ice and sediment at the terminus of the Taku Glacier.

The Taku is unique because it has an unusually large accumulation zone: most glaciers in equilibrium are comprised of about 60% accumulation zone and 40% ablation zone. By contrast, the Taku has about 80% accumulation zone and 20% ablation zone, helping to drive ongoing advance despite the warming climate However, conditions at the terminus of the Taku make rapid retreat a possibility in the near term. Because the base of the Taku is grounded below sea level, if the Taku begins to retreat, water may be able to slip between the glacial ice and the sediment. This would trigger a rapid retreat as the ice melted due to contact with the warmer water.

The Taku has advanced seven kilometers since 1850, but in the last few years it appears to be holding steady at its current position. We went out to survey the terminus of the Taku glacier to investigate if a retreat like this may begin in the near future. At the terminus we used GPS accurate to +/- one centimeter to map points along the glacier front. Wading through streams of meltwater, clambering over piles of sediment, and walking over sections of ice, we collected data points to mark where the exact end of the Taku glacier is this year. When processed, these points will give us a map of the terminus of the Taku Glacier in 2016. From past years we then have a sequence of maps of where the Taku has been year to year.

Our preliminary results suggest that parts of the Taku have retreated from its location in 2015 by roughly 10-20 feet (or approximately 5 meters) in certain locations. This, combined with the data from 2013-2015 that showed no change in the terminus extent after decades of advance of as much as 300 feet (approximately 100 meters) per year may indicate that the Taku is at the beginning stages of retreat. However, a year of melting at the terminus does not necessarily mean that the glacier is receding: these trends must be present for perhaps a decade before we can rely on them to make definitive conclusions.

Our survey data from the glacier helps contribute to JIRP’s long-term dataset of the Taku, which is one of the largest of its kind in the world. What makes our survey of the Taku special is that we very well could be witnesses to the beginning of the retreat of one of the last advancing glaciers in the world. Time will tell.

Olivia Truax, Alex Burkhart, Evan Koncewicz, and Cézy Semnacher on top of the ablation zone of the Taku Glacier.