What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

Deirdre Collins

Georgetown University
 

Our first major traverse—the 10 mile hike to Camp 17, which sits on the edge of the Juneau Icefield and marks the beginning of our expedition—persistently sat in the back of my mind during my first week of JIRP. Having learned the stories and backgrounds of my peers upon my arrival in Juneau, I was initially intimidated by their physical strength, adventurous spirits and wilderness backgrounds. I was filled with nervous excitement as I listened to the staff tell stories of the swamps, elevation gains and challenging terrain we would encounter on our hike. Despite their descriptions of the trials we would face on our upcoming endeavor, the staff reminded me, as I reminded myself, that we were all capable of completing the hike to Camp 17, to begin our journey on the Juneau Icefield. Seeing that my fellow JIRPers exuded confidence in their attitudes towards the hike and were supportive of those who didn’t helped me feel secure as I anticipated the big day ahead.

On the morning of June 30th, I quickly shoved the remainder of my belongings into my pack, and questioned how on earth I would ever manage to lift all of its 40 pounds onto my back. I joined my trail party outside our University of Alaska Southeast dorm to drive to the trailhead. When we arrived, I jumped, twisted and jumped again several times to strap my pack to my body. Our Juneau-based staff said their goodbyes, snapped a “before” photo of us before we wouldn’t take a real shower for around 50 days, and we set out on the trail. The path underlay monstrous trees that I only imagined existed in movies like Lord of the Rings, and inclined gradually from the very start. Remembering that this was considered the “flat” part of the hike, a trace of panic emerged within me as I imagined what was referred to as the “vertical swamp” ahead. When Ibai, our Safety Manager and the head of my trail party, announced that we had reached the vertical swamp, I cranked my neck backwards to process the steep incline above me, which appeared impossible to maneuver. Holding onto any bit of hope I had that I would make it, I began to lift myself up the hillside, clambering under fallen trees, shoving my hands and feet into holds made by tree roots and leaning forward to ensure my pack didn’t take me down with it. Despite my best efforts, any slight movement of my pack caused me to tumble sideways, backwards, or even face first on many occasions. In that moment, I understood why we had practiced some of our climbing skills when we visited the Rock Dump, the local climbing wall, in Juneau.

JIRP students stand above the Ptarmigan Valley at Camp 17. Climbing up the Ptarmigan Valley represented the last leg of the traverse to Camp 17. Photo by Paul Neiman

We hiked through the wet understory of the Tongass National Forest, and the humidity quickly overcame me. With not much hiking experience throughout my life, I hadn’t properly nourished myself for the hike and I soon grew incredibly exhausted. I drank five liters of water, which I seemed to sweat out immediately, and as we climbed higher and higher in elevation, I had trouble regulating my breath. I was sure that this was the hardest thing I had ever done and was genuinely unsure as to whether I would make it to Camp 17 that night. Physical exertion soon turned to emotional panic and as I trailed behind my group, there were moments I wondered if I was in over my head choosing to do JIRP. I had always considered myself strong, but in these moments of difficulty, I lost confidence in my strength and in my ability to recover. As I trailed behind my group, I had a realization; I was with a staff member who had done this before, who had surely seen students struggle, and with friends who would help me if I vocalized how I was feeling. Once I told my trail party that I needed a break, that I didn’t feel well, everything changed. We stopped at a beautiful lake and took a 30 minute break. I made myself eat, drink Gatorade, change into a dry shirt and let Ibai take some of the weight from my pack. I suddenly felt better and was amazed at how quickly I was able to bounce back after having reached such a low point only a half an hour before. I replenished my electrolytes and started to retain more water. Thirty minutes, self-care and support from my group was all I needed to move forward and succeed. I walked up the last part of the hike— up the Ptarmigan valley to Camp 17—for hours feeling strong and revitalized. I was amazed how much my body could endure and that I already had so much to learn from an experience that had seemed so hopeless and negative just hours before. I will always have my trail party, those strong and understanding JIRPers, to thank for supporting me. I realized that I was no longer intimidated, but grateful for their wilderness backgrounds, strength and collective knowledge since they had so many lessons to teach me, even in my weakest moments.

After a week of safety training at Camp 17, full of lessons on glacier travel, ski practice and mini traverses, we have now completed the two-day, 23 mile traverse across the Juneau Icefield to Camp 10. Despite my difficult experience hiking to Camp 17, the weeks leading up to this traverse and the lessons I learned from my first hike, including to take care of myself, to seek help and to persevere, prepared me for this longer and arguably more difficult traverse. Having spent a week with other JIRPers at Camp 17 for safety training, I realized that I wasn’t the only person who struggled at times. As I grew closer to my new friends, we were able to look at the difficulties we encountered and laugh; Laugh at our many face plants on the Lemon Creek Glacier as we learned how to cross country ski, at our memories of the vertical swamp on the hike to Camp 17 and at the challenges that JIRP throws at us every day. We viewed these as learning experiences that would make us stronger for future traverses and became support systems for one another. With these lessons in mind, I crossed the first leg of the Juneau Icefield just a week ago to Camp 10 with a smile on my face despite many skiing falls and exhausting, steep elevation gains. I went from struggling as I walked up the vertical swamp to enjoying myself as I ascended a steep hill on skis just two weeks later. I arrived after two days to our new camp still smiling and had regained confidence in my physical and mental strength. My experience on the first traverse was so difficult, I was unsure if I could learn from it. In the end, that same experience proved to help me immensely on our second major traverse. I now know that I was right all along; I am strong and I can carry on in the face of challenge. Even more than that, it only takes me a few hops to get my backpack on now.

The Matthes-Llewellyn Divide

Kate Bartell

Wittenberg University

Science itself is an interesting focus. It is not just a thing, or an idea, or even a sole research topic. You cannot box it into a category with one title or one author. It is not defined to a single glacier system or a solitary winding stream. It can be studied in any part of the world, with any questions in mind. The science that I am working on now happens to be on the Juneau Icefield in Alaska. My science involves snow-machines, base-stations, and of course: Global-Positioning-System (GPS).

A beautiful sunset at Camp 8. Photo by Kate Bartell.

I am spending the majority of my summer traversing and researching the Juneau Icefield. As part of the GPS team here at the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP), it is our job to help collect elevation, longitude, and latitude data points as we traverse along the icefield. This variety of information will be used to calculate velocity in the numerous areas of the Icefield and relate it with past GPS data and JIRP’s other research area’s data, for instance, Mass Balance.

One specific area of science and research that the GPS group is focusing in on is the Matthes-Llewellyn Divide. The Matthes-Llewellyn Divide is a glacier divide that connects and separates Matthes Glacier from Llewellyn Glacier. As part of our project, we are constructing a grid of GPS points that we will lay out onto the divide with bamboo wands. When we lay the wands out, we will survey their exact longitude and latitude coordinates. As the ice flows, the set points will flow along with the two different glaciers, moving in opposite directions. We then will return back to the bamboo wands and re-measure the new locations of the wands. The distance and direction the wands have travelled will allow us to calculate the ice flow velocities and where, exactly, the two glaciers separate. We are constructing this grid by looking at the divide data from 2013 and beyond, and interpreting where the Divide may have migrated in the intervening years.  By determining where exactly the flow divide is, how it has changed, and how it compares to previous years, we gain critical information about where one glacier ends and the other begins.

The research that the GPS team is working on over the course of summer 2016, and has worked on in many previous summers, provides important information about the condition of the Icefield. For example, that the Divide is shifting over time; this change can alter how much precipitation is being distributed to the Matthes and Llewellyn Glaciers. So, by using our GPS data along with data from other research teams, we can track long-term changes in the mass balance of the two glaciers. This, in turn, gives us a deeper understanding of the health of the whole glacial system.

One of JIRP’s trusty snow-machines that are used to collect points across the Juneau Icefield. Photo by Kristen Lyda Rees.

Cross-Back-Tele-Country-Mark-Hiking

Sämi Hepner

University of Zurich

Before I learned to walk I learned to ski. Later, when I was 7 years young, I began to snowboard. During the last 15 years, I have become both a fanatic skier and snowboarder. I count my days on the snow. In a winter season, which for me, in Switzerland, begins in late October and ends at the end of May, I normally count about 50 snow days. My record was 60 days on the slope back when I was in high school.

Apart from downhill skiing and snowboarding I tried cross-country skiing a few times. It was fun, but did not compare with downhill skiing. Once I tried telemarking. The feeling was something between skiing and snowboarding: not as smooth and flowing as snowboarding, and not as fast and speedy as skiing. I was not convinced.

When I heard about JIRP I was excited about the idea of skiing in the summer. I have traveled to South America twice during my summertime, where I skied in their winter. But to ski in the actual summer was something new.

Reading the complicated description of the required ski gear for JIRP I couldn’t imagine what type of ski we would be using. I went to different ski and outdoor stores in Switzerland and showed the whole description to the salespeople. No one could help me find this weird ski creation. Finally, I purchased a pair on the website of an American outdoor store and sent them directly to Alaska. Even once they arrived in Alaska, we had to change the bindings to meet the JIRP requirements.

Once at JIRP, I tried the skis for the first time. It turned out that the ski is more or less a cross-country ski: it is long, lightweight and has no sidecut. Additionally, it has some features for backcountry use: the edges are metal for stability, and the bases have fish scales to allow uphill travel. The binding, which is an old school three-pin-style nordic binding, works like a telemark binding in that the toe is fixed while the heel is free. The boot itself is a telemarking boot and surprisingly compatible to the binding.

This style of skiing is more difficult than I expected. The thin ski requires a lot of balance, made even more difficult when you are wearing a heavy backpack. The snow is certainly not flat and there are a lot of bumps in the snow surface, called sun cups, which make the way challenging. Traversing the glacier often requires a rope to connect members of the trail party. Keeping the rope appropriately taut requires matching skiing speeds between the members of the team. Skiing on a rope team also requires constant attention to avoid both cutting the rope with the steel ski edges and creating tangles and snarls of rope around the harness, legs, and skis.

Typical rope team of four people with skis. From left to right:  Annika, Annie (Lynx), and Louise. Photo by Sämi Hepner

At our first camp we often went to the Ptarmigan Glacier to downhill ski in our meager spare time. Because of the slopes lack of constant exposure to the sun, the sun cups were not as bad. Without backpack and rope we succeeded and failed in some inspiring telemark turns. Without T-bars or gondolas, we had to earn every run and appreciated each one even more. The runs were something rare, special and valuable.

Riding the sunset. Photo by Sämi Hepner.

Continuing the traverse towards Atlin, we are confronted more and more with huge flat areas of the icefield without any ascents or descents. Crossing these plains, our transportation reminds me more of hiking than of skiing. These long walks in the middle of a wild landscape and in a certain amount of isolation leave time to think and philosophize.

One thought I’ve had is the following: It is insane, how big the energy footprint of conventional downhill skiing is. The production of artificial snow, as a result of decreasing natural snowfall, requires huge amounts of water and energy. The attempt to get more tourists and visitors uphill with continuously bigger and fancier gondolas leads to a kind of urbanization of the mountain. In the end it is another modification and conquest of a natural space by humans. Skiing, then, is no longer associated with a peaceful immersion in nature, but just another consumer’s entertainment. Maybe we should start to rethink skiing and go back to skiing’s roots; where sweaty ascents through beautiful landscapes are more valued than perfectly shaped but crowded slopes or après-ski parties that surround the whole mountain with loud and annoying sounds. Instead, maybe we can share the fascination of skiing with the next generation, or at least the fascination of Cross-Back-Tele-Country-Mark-Hiking.

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.