Taku Glacier: Anomaly of the Juneau Icefield

Kate Bollen

On a map of the Juneau Icefield, Taku Glacier is a distinguished ribbon that winds out of the southeast corner of the icefield as an outlet glacier. It’s remarkably large, even by Alaskan standards. It encompasses 671 square kilometers (Pelto et al, 2013) and measures about 5 kilometers across where it passes in front of Camp 10. It’s fed by four tributary glaciers that line its upper margins, and its outline is similar to the shape of Thailand. Taku Glacier is quite special, not only because it sets a stunning scene for JIRPers to admire from the porch of the Camp 10 cook shack, but also because it’s one of only a hand-full of glaciers in Alaska (and around the world, for that matter), that has been advancing (Pelto et al, 2013).

Shawnee Reynoso and Louise Borthwick sleeping out on the porch of the Camp 10 cook shack overlooking Taku Glacier. Photo: Kate Bollen

Until recently, Taku Glacier has been growing in mass. Indeed, the Taku looks unlike its neighbors as it descends toward the floodplain of the Taku River. The ice juts out over the small trees that live in its path, as the adjacent Norris Glacier looks as if it’s withering away, cracked and shrunken. Since most Alaskan glaciers are surrounded by forests that are actively creeping out onto the new ground exposed by glacial retreat, the sight of the Taku mowing over trees and shrubs as it slides down its broad valley is quite victorious to the glacier enthusiast.

Positions of the end of Taku Glacier from 1948 to 2014. Adapted from a figure by Chris McNeil.

Boundaries of Taku Glacier on the Juneau Icefield. Adapted from a figure by Chris McNeil.

Students Molly Peek and Shawnee Reynoso and faculty member Chris McNeil ski through thinly exposed crevasses on Taku Glacier below Camp 10 on a sunny day. Photo: Kate Bollen

There are two main causes behind the anomalous case of the Taku. First, the glacier has a unique hypsometry, which refers to the distribution of the glacier’s surface area with respect to elevation. Most of the Taku lies above 1200 meters above sea level, so it has a huge accumulation zone (the area where annual snowfall doesn’t completely melt by the end of the melt season) compared to the total surface area of the glacier. As a result, the majority of Taku Glacier can gain mass from falling snow each year. Second, Taku Glacier is a tidewater glacier. This may strike an observer as peculiar since the Taku currently flows into a river rather than the ocean, but this classification stands based on the Taku’s behavior and bed topography.

Olivia Truax collects snow depth data on the Northwest branch of Taku Glacier. Photo: Kate Bollen

To understand the dynamics of Taku Glacier, we have to know the story of the tidewater glacier cycle. Here is a summary derived from a lecture delivered to JIRP students by Martin Truffer earlier this summer at Camp 17. As the end of a tidewater glacier, known as the terminus, rests in a fjord, the elevation of the glacier’s bed is below sea level. As a result, the melt water beneath the terminus of the glacier becomes pressurized so that it can still flow into the ocean despite the weight of the seawater column. The terminus is quickly eroded as big chunks of ice peel away during calving events and as warm sea water circulates against the terminus. Consequently, the glacier is driven into a rapid retreat, and it recoils up its valley until it reaches a resting point above sea level. There, the glacier is able to stabilize and to eventually begin an advance by pushing its dirty, icy terminus forward on a terminal moraine (a pile of sediment collected by the glacier at its terminus as it grinds forward). By advancing a homemade mound of sediment ahead of itself, the glacier can rest above the deep water of the fjord and the subglacial hydraulics are less pressurized, so the glacier is protected from the intense melting and erosion that previously drove it back. As it continues to bulge onward, the glacier eventually reaches a state where its surface balance nears zero, which means that its accumulation and ablation (melting) are equal. At this point, the glacier can reenter a rapid retreat as the tidewater glacier cycle continues.

A steamship floats in front of the Taku terminus during an earlier advancement of the glacier.

As for the Taku, its bed doesn’t rise above sea level until an estimated 20 kilometers up-valley of its terminus (oral comm. Beem 2016). Additionally, the Taku has been in the advancement stage of the tidewater glacier cycle since 1850, but its advance has halted in the last two years (oral comm. Truffer, 2016). It’s too early to determine if the Taku has reached the end of its advance or to say that a rapid retreat is imminent. However, the reactions of the Taku and other glaciers to climate will have wide-spread impacts and can tell us quite a bit about the changing climate. Mountain glaciers account for less than 1% of global glacial ice volume, but their rapid rate of mass loss is responsible for one-third of the current observed sea level rise (Larsen et al., 2015). Additionally, glaciers play a big role in downstream ecosystems as they deliver nutrients and sediment as well as well as manipulate water flow, turbidity, and temperature (O’Neel et al., 2015). Consequently, these glaciers can almost directly impact where and how people near and far are living. The Taku and other glaciers captivate us as scientists and inspire us as humans to understand the complex systems in which we live.

References

Beem, Lucas. Oral communication 2016.

Larsen, C. F., E. Burgess, A. A. Arendt, S. O’Neel, A. J. Johnson, and C. Kienholz (2015), Surface melt dominates Alaska glacier mass balance, Geophys. Res. Lett., 42, 5902–5908, doi:10.1002/2015GL064349.

O’Neel, S. et al. 2015. Icefield-to-Ocean Linkages across the Northern Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest Ecosystem, BioScience, 65, 5, 499-512.

Pelto, M., J. Kavanaugh, and C. McNeil , Juneau Icefield Mass Balance Program 1946-2011, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 5, 319-330, doi:10.5194/essd-5-319-2013.

Truffer, Martin. Oral communication 2016.

The Icefield Within

Matty Miller

Harvard University

Camp 10 is unlike anywhere else I’ve ever been. There’s a stillness and monumental character to the surroundings that compels me in remarkable ways. From atop our rocky little nunatak, the snow expands so far in each direction that the land seems to me more of an ocean than an icefield, its placid waters interrupted by jagged black spines of mountains whose vertical rise seem so incongruous with the smoothness and flatness below. It’s alien and unbelievable, yet unchanging: each morning I wake up and this vast place that defies my prior experience has remained, by and large, the same.

Camp 10 with the Taku Range beyond. Photo by Matt Beedle.

Plenty of people have made the same trite (but indeed, true) observations of Man’s smallness in Nature, so I’ll spare you that. But what gets me about being in a place like this is the impossibility of denying it. What do I mean by that? Well, I suppose that so much of the way we perceive each other and our surroundings is based on imagined subjectivities that, if we will them enough, can be changed simply by modifying our thinking. We build complex and negative mindsets that we refuse to change often due to the fact that we simply assume them to be unchangeable. Take hate … something I believe to be an egregious untruth. If I hate something, I can (with sufficient will power) reorganize my mind to love. Or, for example, if a sensation (say, a snow bath) or taste (say, spam) disturbs me, I can (with time) condition myself to enjoy it. Thus, I find that certain phenomena to which we often believe ourselves bound, be they immediate or grand, are ultimately vulnerable to changes in perception. Some of these things, if we believe in the powers of the mind, are infinitely malleable.

Some things, but not all! I, for example, can’t wake up and simply imagine away the Taku Towers. I can’t close my eyes and melt away the glacier before me. There are places where the seemingly boundless limits of perception cease to expand and those places are in Nature! The physical Earth, which we have come here to study and understand, cannot be made one way or another with thought, great though its power may otherwise be. It objectively is, and this fact cannot be altered by human agency. In a world in which people are born with the freedom to direct their consciousness, I feel that it is the investment of the mind into such manifestations of objectivity (from the topsoil to the mountaintop) that constitutes the true search for, and embrace of, Truth. Herein lies the nobility of Science. Indeed, the direction of the mind towards the aforementioned, more malleable aspects of perception (from art to hatred and everything in between) takes up most of our time in life. In the end, however, they pale in comparison to the monumental veracity of the Wild, precisely due to the fact that the former are subjective, whereas the latter is absolute. Its existence lies beyond what we can ever hope to create or use to delude ourselves. That is why I love it here! That is why I must seek out a life devoted to science. To do so keeps me grounded, reminding me that 1) I do exist, as do other things and 2) the negative thoughts that I unconsciously carry around are ultimately vulnerable to the efforts of my own mind. Thus, Nature empowers me, though it may also show me to be tiny.

Sunset at Camp 17. Photo by Matt Beedle.

All well and good. I can reach out and touch nature. I can ski out to the mountains and climb on top of them, I can feel the cold of the snow, lay my hands on the granite of the nunatak. But what of the intangible? Does immutable Truth exist beyond the physical world? I have to believe that it does, in places that we must journey to within ourselves to discover. I think that this is the spirit of the explorer to which Dr.Miller once referred; for just as we seize the opportunity to venture into this wilderness, so too must we make the adventure to find the undeniable truths within ourselves.  We must turn the ideals of exploration inwards to find the white horizons and uncharted spaces inside us all that are so manifest that their clarity and immutability guide us to obvious self-understanding.  Love, friendship, patriotism, desire: the key drivers of the spirit can be summited and studied like any mountain, and only in doing so shall we find the vulnerabilities of our doubts, the humility of our condition, and the weakness of our weaknesses. Let us widen this expedition to the icefield within, taking the time to turn from the physical to the metaphysical as this unique space guides us not only to discoveries of the Earth, but discoveries of our own nature.  
 

Storytelling in JIRP

Victor Cabrera

Dartmouth College

Among the many idiosyncrasies of the JIRP micro-culture, perhaps none are more valuable than the culture of story-telling, which is so fondly expressed at every moment of every summer on the Juneau Icefield. Those who commonly read our blog will have noticed two of the main themes which so often occupy our thoughts: surmounting fear of death and surmounting the smell of our SPAM-laden outhouses. Oral tradition, however, proves to be much more complex when we learn to read between the lines of those events which most readily entrain the attention of young students, new to a life of expedition.

Staff member Allie Strel reads a humorous story on Expedition Behavior in the Library at Camp 17. Photo by Matt Beedle.

The JIRP storytelling tradition goes beyond a recounting of history. Indeed, it goes beyond any sort of written record as well as past any sensible degree of scale (did that person really fall 100 feet into a crevasse?). Whereas staff and faculty introduce the study of glaciers and the pursuit of truth as the backbone of JIRP, the true mainstays of JIRP are the tales told at the dinner table/porch/rock, the phrases carefully written on the walls of its buildings, the names stretched across the rafters, and the held breaths of a captive audience sustaining a barrage of onomatopoeias.

One of two events usually triggers a staff or faculty’s story: the mention of a scribble on a wall or an exasperated request to explain an inside joke which has remained outside of the students’ knowledge. Each trigger, however, develops into the same effect: a devilish look in the storyteller’s eye, the slight curl of the lips, and a knowing look at a complicit compatriot which hints to the audience exactly how great a story will be. In the spirit of scientific statistics, it is interesting to note that the intensity of the story is positively correlated to the amount of restless chuckling and background provided by the teller. Regardless of the build-up to the punch line, however, a promise of legendary shenanigans always keeps the listeners attentive through as many circuitous tangents as may be presented. We here at JIRP have realized that, in the end, it will always be good.

Kate Bollen peers into the 'Zoo' (Radio Room) at C17, where staff and faculty members Annika Ord, Chris McNeil, Annie Boucher, Newt Krumdieck and Ibai Rico spin a good yarn during meal time. Photo by Matt Beedle.

The cruxes of our stories create the very language we employ. They culminate at paramount lessons about life on the icefield which may perhaps even be employed outside the icy visage of the Taku Towers. Moral imperatives drawn from the tales of the illustrious Dry-Corner Man or that of the amorphous, yet readily sensed, Cook Shack Easter Bunny teach us about the value of selfless expeditionary tact. Tales behind the quotes on our outhouse walls tell us about the reflective potential of looking deep within ourselves during the only moments in which we are truly (usually) alone. Tales of daily camp life gone awry teach us both to look up to and to strive for the legendary flexibility which makes JIRP adventures possible. Lastly, tales of Dr. Maynard Miller teach us about the significance of the legacy we are inheriting and showcase the reverence that one person can potentially earn by following a clear and noble vision for good.

Storytelling in our modest nunatak camps is what establishes the nexus between JIRP’s two goals of expeditionary training and science. Moreover, it is what draws returning JIRPers back out into the wilderness and away from any recognizable degree of urbane comfort. It cements our friendships and validates our experiences and, most importantly, it slowly hands off traditions rooted in more than 70 years of experience to the next generation of fiendish JIRPers. No testament is stronger, however, than witnessing the tradition of storytelling beginning to be reflected among the students. It is then, when a student, rather than a staffer, begins to tell of experiences and events, that the devilish look, the rise in tone, and the knowing looks have clearly infected a new group of JIRPers. It is also then that the most intense and prideful laughs are projected by the staff, when it becomes clear that a new class of students has now joined them in adding to the collection of tall tales that colors life on the icefield.

Give me some space!

Evan Koncewicz

Tell me what you know about Wilderness! What words come to mind? Forests, the outdoors, trees, the unknown? For me, one word that comes to mind is space. I’m not talking about outer space, although that certainly is interesting and could be considered wilderness in itself. I’m talking about wide-open spaces! Places where man is a visitor and is not necessarily meant to be. Wide open sagebrush flats, high towering granite peaks, snow covered plateaus, and lush forests of pine and cedar. Places you see from a plane or from miles away, wondering why and how someone would be there. This is what I mean by space.

I grew up in what I call a ‘normal suburban town.’ Houses are roughly 10-15 meters apart, commercial areas and business plazas dominate areas outside of neighborhoods, and roads connect vast areas to make commute time to any place of necessity under 15 minutes. Here, there is no real appreciation of empty space. Space is something to be used and developed for business, growth, comfort, and convenience.

Sunset on the Southwest Branch of Taku Glacier - two days on foot from Juneau. Photo by Evan Koncewicz.

Outside of these congested areas we find the contrasting situation. Roads begin to lessen like roots converging to the stem of a plant. Smaller towns begin to consolidate in central locations rather than over vast areas of space. Vegetation, trees, mountains, and life exist and begin to increase in areas that roads and development do not touch or cross. The American West is one example, even more so Alaska, the last frontier. Here in Alaska on the Juneau Icefield, exists a place with a great amount of space, filled with snow, ice, and rock. It is wilderness.

Camp 10 is one of JIRP’s many camps across the Juneau Icefield. It is in the center of the icefield on a nunatak, an outcrop of rocks overlooking the Taku Glacier and an array of mountains that have poked through the ice. From miles away, Camp 10 is simply a bump on the horizon, disguised by the sheer distance of snow and ice.

In Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, he rants about space and Industrial Tourism and the National Parks. To paraphrase his words, motorized vehicles, when not at rest, require a volume of space far out of proportion to their size. To illustrate; imagine a lake approximately ten miles long and one mile wide (a glacial lake!). A single motorboat could easily circumnavigate the lake; ten motorboats would begin to crowd it; twenty or thirty all in operation would dominate the lake; and fifty would create the hazards of confusion and turmoil that make pleasure impossible. Suppose we banned motorboats and allowed only canoes and rowboats; we would see at once that the lake seemed ten or perhaps a hundred times bigger. The same thing holds true, to an even greater degree, for the automobile. Distance and space are a function of time and speed.

We arrived at Camp 10 by ski, traversing across 20 miles of snow and ice. It is in isolation, where no automobiles or paved roads exist. Human impact is minimal. The only unnatural life that exists within our space is a backpack-carried succulent desert plant named Norris. To watch a group of skiers in the middle of the Taku Glacier ski for two hours, see their progress, and still be able to distinguish the group, is something surreal. We live in a barren rainforest of snow, rock, and ice. If not for helicopters that bring us fuel and food, life on the icefield would not be sustainable for more than a few days. The space between Camp 10 and the civilization of Juneau is what isolates us.

A trail party skis towards Camp 10, which is visible in the distance, but many hours away. Photo by Evan Koncewicz.

Wilderness’ leading multiplier in its made up equation is space. Untouched, undeveloped, unaltered space. Space where man and our machines are visitors, visitors that travel on skis, take pictures, learn, and share their findings with everyone around them. In a world of perpetual growth from our population, economy, and development, conservation is at direct conflict. Land conservation is one of the last hopes for preserving these wild places from ourselves. Alaska is the last frontier. One of the last states to unionize and one of the last places to protect. We as a society need to start collaborating about our space, protecting areas of ecological importance like the Pacific Coast Temperate Rainforest. Efforts like these start with an idea and live and die with action. Through actions from locals, advocates, and influential people, we can find a balance between protecting the environment, sustaining our economy, and preserving human culture.      

Cooking and Teamwork

Olivia Truax

Amherst College

On an expedition filled with steep learning curves (you’ve never seen snow before? Try telemark skiing down a hill with a 30-pound pack! You’ve never slept outside before? How about camping on a glacier! You’ve never had a science class before? Let’s talk biogeochemical field methods!) the steepest, by necessity, is that of camp cook. When your name appears on the “plan of the day” as part of the three-student cook team it’s do or die. Well, I doubt that our camp of hungry JIRPers would kill a cook who, at the end of a long day of fieldwork, failed to produce an edible meal. However, cooks do run the risk of going down in JIRP history like “that idiot in such-and-such year who cooked the pasta into barely edible salt mush.”

Luckily, Brittany, Lyda and my first mistake was one of quantity not quality. Fifty JIRPers can eat a lot of oatmeal. They cannot, however, eat eighty servings of oatmeal. Having made it through breakfast without memorable slipups we faced our next task: lunch and what to do with 30 servings of rapidly congealing Quaker Oats (because all of our food on the icefield is delivered via wildly expensive, gas-guzzling, helicopters, food waste, always environmentally and financially irresponsible, is inexcusable). Word to the wise: 1. JIRPers love burritos 2. if you mix leftover oatmeal with brown sugar, flour, raisins, vegetable oil, and baking powder and stick it in the oven it won’t turn into an “oatmeal cake,” but it will turn into a delicious pudding-esque dish even if you forget about it and bake it at 400 degrees for an hour and a half.

For dinner we decided that it’d be a fun challenge to make a meal that used every dish in the kitchen. Well, our goal was to make enough roasted potato medley, chopped salad, and beef stew, for 51 people— no more, no less. The somewhat predictable result was four hours of chopping and roasting twenty-five pounds of potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots in a single oven, stewing canned beef in the largest cast iron skillet I have ever encountered (this behemoth requires two burners), and a brief stint as short-order cooks desperately trying to chop enough peppers, apples, and lettuce to keep the salad bowl full in the face of the seemingly inexhaustible appetite of a never ending line of JIRPers (it was our own fault, we told them to help themselves to “bottomless salad”).

The Mass-Balance Team - Evan Koncewicz, Victor Cabrera, Tai Rozvar, Olivia Truax, Alex Burkhart and Kate Bollen - present their research proposal on the deck at Camp 10. Photo by Matt Beedle.

When the line of salad-seeking JIRPers finally ended we had a moment to enjoy our meal staring out at the view of the Taku Towers from the porch of the cook shack before the mountain of dishes called us back inside. Sitting with Brittany and Lyda, enjoying the meat Brittany stewed, clutching a cup of coffee Lyda brewed, and savoring the last of the peppers we had frantically chopped I found myself reflecting that 1. Kirkland-brand canned meet and pre-ground coffee has never tasted so good and 2. my day cooking, a task that I’d dreaded as a chore for weeks, had been one of my favorite days so far on the icefield. Sometime in-between preparing almost twice the amount of oatmeal we needed and the final dash to finish the salad something about JIRP clicked for me. Far from the day I had anticipated away from the science and exploration I thought constituted the “real” business of JIRP, my time in the kitchen—surrounded as I was by the laughter I shared with Lyda and Brittany, the aroma of baking “oatmeal cake,” and the smiles of JIRPers with full bellies—took me to the heart of what it means to be part of an expedition family.

Here on the icefield we talk a lot about community and teamwork. The idea that we are stronger together than the sum of our parts is an organizing principle of our daily life, drawing us closer as we navigate the challenges of living and learning in this harsh environment. I began to feel the strength of this community on the long trek from Camp 17 to Camp 10 when the quiet encouragement of the person ahead of me on the rope team got me through the final slog up the crevasse field to our camp at the Norris Cache. It buoyed me when I took a hard fall running through Camp 17 to grab my ski boots for a sunset ski on the Ptarmigan Glacier and my fellow JIRPers patched up my bruised knees and low stoke level (word to the wise: DO NOT RUN IN CAMP). Co-authoring a research proposal and digging snow pits with the rest of the Mass Balance project group, I’d begun to feel an inkling of what’s possible when JIRPers devote themselves to a project as a team. But it was in the kitchen with Brittany and Lyda brainstorming an original menu from limited ingredients and dashing about to make enough salad that I first understood that phrase “stronger together than the sum of our parts” as not only an aspirational aphorism but an incontrovertible truth.

Completing the two-day traverse from Camp 17 to Camp 10. Photo by Catharine White.

Our meal won’t go down in JIRP history. I’m sure the potatoes we agonized over have already begun to fade into the many delicious meals we’ve had here on the icefield in the minds of our fellow JIRPers, but my first day in the kitchen will stay with me. Working together wasn’t always easy: I stubbornly stuck to the idea that we should fry up two sausages to feed 51 people for dinner long after Brittany and Lyda, sensibly, pointed out that if we did that 40 JIRPers would go hungry. But, together, we produced three meals (none of which involved sausage) that kept our expedition, our community, happy and fed.

"Snake Linda": The Field Science of Drone Photogrammetry

Kenzie McAdams

Purdue University

A new morning was upon us, and the familiar misty cloud that lives over Camp 17 greeted us and the new day. After a delicious breakfast of spacon (spam bacon) and oatmeal, we learned of our upcoming “Plan of the Day”. With safety training winding down and afternoons starting to become free for academics and field science, we were all given the choice of a variety of different opportunities to take part in for the day.

We started our day in the library, with a lecture by academic director Matt Beedle that introduced us to photogrammetry. Photogrammetry. The term was familiar, but I really had no firm grasp on what it meant. Matt described photogrammetry as “the science or art of making reliable measurements using photography”. During lecture, we explored the two types of photogrammetry: terrestrial (on land) and aerial (from the air). The focus of this lecture was on exploring and using Structure-from-Motion (SfM) Photogrammetry. SfM is a low-cost and effective tool that we utilized to obtain high-resolution datasets. The SfM method relies on multiple overlapping images that photogrammetric software uses to match points taken from the same feature in each image. With that in mind, Matt prompted us to think of some difficulties we may have with using this method on the icefield. One of the primary issues we would face in our attempts to image the icefield would be the lack of these identifiable features on the surface, due to it being a vast white expanse. Nearby Lake Linda, on the other hand, would pose as the perfect target for our experiment. The lake is a meltwater feature that drains subglacially down the Lemon Creek Glacier into the Lemon Creek valley. Due to its identifiable ridgelines and rock surfaces, it includes many reference points for the SfM software to do its analysis. Moreover, it is an ideal location to use aerial photogrammetry to model the elevation of the lake basin because it is not an easy task to obtain these measurements terrestrially.

Team Drone in front of Lake Linda on the Lemon Creek Glacier. From left to right: Uwe Hoffman, Chris Miele, Matt Beedle, Deirdre Collins, Kenzie McAdams, Cézy Semnacher, Louise Borthwick, Alex Burkhardt, Lucas Beem. (Photo credit: Matt Beedle)

After a discussion on the pros and cons of drone flight path design, our initial task was to create two flight paths. During this discussion we chatted of techniques related to camera angle, area coverage, and possible difficulties with the surrounding topography. We students collaborated to design two paths: one that flew in a spiral pattern radially outward, with the camera facing at a 45-degree angle, and the other in a snake-like pattern with the camera facing straight downward. We had to think carefully about our camera angle choices, because if the angle of the camera were at the same angle as the slope of a feature, the image would not capture it. Student Alex Burkhart explains that by creating the spiral pattern, the 45-degree camera angle would continuously capture the rim of the lake as well as always capturing a portion of the concave basin. I helped to design the snake pattern, with the intention that by having the flight zig-zag over the surface with the angle facing straight downward, we would cover the most area and have the smallest chance at missing any features.  After we had our paths set, we journeyed out on our skis towards Lake Linda.

A screenshot of the 3D image of Lake Linda with the “Snake Linda” flight path photo positions marked as blue squares. (Photo credit: Matt Beedle)

Once in the field, our first priority was placing Ground Control Points (GCPs) around the rim of the lake. These GCPs served as exact locations for JIRP faculty surveyor, Uwe Hoffman, to collect GPS coordinates. With these GCPs geo-referenced, we can later locate our whole model in space. We wanted to space the GCPs consistently around the rim of the lake, so we decided to make the hike up and around the large moraine on the back side. The hike consisted of a side-hill ski up to a small ledge where we removed our skis from our feet and continued to bootpack up the ridge. In order to test the different methods of photogrammetry, students Auri Clark and Cézy Semnacher took photos terrestrially along the hike using their iphones.

Kenzie McAdams preparing to position a GCP. (Photo credit: Cezy Semnacher)

After placing all of our GCPs, we started our drone flights. During Spiral Linda, everything was going as planned until we noticed the drone getting pretty close to the rocks. As it flew closer, we could start to hear the concern in Matt's voice: “Is the drone going to hit the cliff? Is it worth continuing the flight?” After some speculation, Matt made the final decision to abort the mission. For our second flight, “Snake Linda”, we changed the flight elevation of each point to ~40m higher than previously done. We started our flight, everything going as planned, until we noticed an unexpected visitor: above the ridge we could see an eagle flying curiously around Lake Linda. Now we were not only on patrol to make sure the drone didn’t crash into the rocks, but also to keep an eye out for an airborne eagle attack. We suddenly noticed the drone once again flying precariously close to the rocks: How could this be? We had just updated all of the settings to make sure our flight ran smoothly. We re-checked the flight path, and then realized our mistake: we had neglected to adjust one point by 40 m. To prevent disaster, Matt took over manual control of the drone. All in all, after a few close calls with the rocks and one pesky eagle, we had collected our field data.

Once back at Camp-17, Matt uploaded our data into a program called Photoscan.  Photoscan generates a point cloud, which creates a 3-D surface that produces a model from all of the aerial photos taken in the field. We can use this 3-D model of Lake Linda to visualize and obtain surface elevation measurements. Unfortunately, the images from Spiral Linda weren’t recorded by the drone, so we only created a model using the Snake Linda flight. If we were to do this field experiment again, we would try to recreate the Spiral Linda flight so we could compare it to our current model. We can continue to use this technique in the future to observe the surface elevation changes over time of our favorite meltwater lake, Lake Linda.

A screenshot of the final 3D image of Lake Linda in Photoscan. (Photo credit: Matt Beedle)

Not-So-Academic JIRP Lessons

Auri Clark

University of Puget Sound

Coming into this program as a biochemistry major, I have been busy absorbing many academic topics completely foreign to me, including photogrammetry, sedimentology, and glacier mass balance. During the last three weeks on the icefield, I have also been busy learning many important skills and random facts unique to the JIRP experience:

1.  Counterintuitive to your first instinct, always pick the bed with the most nails sticking out of the walls around you. You may regret this decision momentarily when you hook your pants on one trying to climb out of your bunk early in the morning or when you roll around in the middle of the night and feel one poke you in the back, but I promise these minor setbacks are worth it. It is difficult staying organized when you are living out of a backpack. If you want to be able to find your clean pair of socks among all of your stuff (and the clothing of the 20 other girls you’re sharing sleeping quarters with) after a long day of skiing, as well as have a place to hang your wet ones inside, you want as many nails as you can get.

2.  There are only two ways to wake up after setting your sleeping bag and bivy out on the rocks on a beautiful night. You might think that sleeping outside means falling asleep under the stars and waking up to a beautiful sunrise next to the Taku Towers, slowly sitting up to yawn and stretch, and enjoying the amazing view until you are ready for breakfast. In the five times I’ve slept outside, I have never had such a pleasant experience. I have woken up to a slow drizzle on my face that quickly turned into a downpour, which then somehow crept its way through my bivy and into the space between my toes. This experience usually causes an immediate attempt to find cover and sometimes a long scramble through the pouring rain in shorts and a t-shirt. At other times, I have woken up in a full sweat to the sun high above me, converting the cozy bundle of synthetic down I curled up in the night before into a thousand degree torture chamber. This experience, even more uncomfortable than the previous, also requires immediate evacuation of your sleeping bag at a less than ideal hour of the morning. Yet I will still sleep outside over my bunk every chance I get.

My first night in Camp 10, sleeping in the best bivy spot. The view is looking across the Taku Glacier at the Taku Towers (they can be spotted right in the middle of the peaks shown). This night included both an early morning sprinkle and a glaring sun wake-up. Photo by Auri Clark.

3.  The JIRP schedule tends to run on a different clock than the usual. I’m not talking about using military time, although that has been quite the learning experience for me as well. If it’s 0845 and the staff says you MUST be ready for today’s excursion at 0900, you should try and be ready by 0930 and if you’re with an especially prompt group, you may even leave by 1000.

4.  I thought I knew about sunburns before coming up to the icefield as I’ve had my fair share of painful experiences with them before. During our mini traverse, one of our first days out on the snow and ice for nearly 10 hours in beautiful weather, I applied sunscreen diligently at every opportunity. I even put zinc oxide on my nose and cheeks to save what I know as my most vulnerable sunburn spots, despite my concern for looking dorky in all the awesome pictures I was sure to be featured in. I was so proud of myself going to bed that night without any burns, unlike many of my goggle-tanned companions, but this joy quickly disappeared upon waking up the next morning. The sun reflecting off the snow managed to fry the entire interior of my nose. I couldn’t wipe or even touch my consistently runny nose for the next couple days without thinking my whole nose might be peeling off with the amount of pain it caused. If you are planning on spending a full day with sun exposure coming from below as it reflects off the snow, don’t forget to apply sunscreen to the inside of your nose. I wouldn’t recommend applying sunscreen to the inside of your mouth, but do try and get rid of wide-open mouth breathing habits as well.

The trail party ahead of my own using crampons to navigate the ablation zone on the Lemon Creek Glacier during our mini traverse, with beautiful and dangerous blue sky above. Photo by Auri Clark.

5.  No matter how full you are, you can always seem to fit in one more piece of pilot bread. For those of you who don’t know what pilot bread is, it is a palm-sized, flavorless cracker, and they are absolutely addicting. It’s not so much the plain cracker I crave at the end of every day, but the endless number of topping combinations: peanut butter and jelly; butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar; leftover spaghetti sauce and parmesan cheese; the leftover mix of sauce and salad dressing left at the bottom of your dinner bowl. Whatever you are eating, it somehow tastes better on pilot bread. Just know that once you try one topping with pilot bread, you will end up trying every topping and every combination of toppings with pilot bread by the end of the night. And the next night you will try them all again.

Many of these findings may not be applicable to the remainder of my life, and probably not most of yours, but they do present a good insight into the icefield lifestyle. And to the future JIRPers reading this blog—remember these lessons, as I am confident they will still be relatable for the summers to come.

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