Hello folks! After some modest nudging by our beloved assistant coach Annika, I have decided to make a blog post to share some of my summer adventures.
As stated above, I am a proud Vermonter and I have lived my whole life around one key statement: Vermont mountains are real mountains! Sadly, this summer my views were put to the test by Juneau, AK and the glorious pointy beauties that state has to offer! (I think I still stand by my 802 lyfestyle but my world has been truly rocked)
Me with the big guys. and my sick glacier goggles.
The Place: Juneau, AK on the Juneau Icefield
The Plan: 100-mile ski traverse across the Icefield, staying in huts and learning all about the glacier along the way
The People: a rad crew from all across the US, Europe, and South America
The Purpose: look good, look good, look good, science, look good, look good, safety
We started our traverse by hiking up to the first camp, overlooking Juneau. We stayed there for two weeks learning lots of glacier safety skills such as using ice axes, crampons, and skiing on a rope team.
Luckily, the weather was on our side! Normally, Juneau gets about twice as much rain as Seattle (!!) and is considered a temperate rainforest. However, we arrived on the Icefield in a rare sunny stretch and got many lovely sunset views.
Sunset from Camp 17 (the first camp).
Around the summer solstice, the sunsets lasted for several hours.
However, sometimes the sun was a bit too much. To get to the next camp, we had to leave super early (around 3am) because the amount of heat and snowmelt caused by 18 hours of daylight.
"sunrise" at 4am during the traverse to Camp 10 (the second camp)
Helicopters were an important part of our summer. Each week, a helicopter would deliver fresh food (cheese, lettuce, peppers, hummus, maybe even some yogurt if we were lucky!), along with mail and any supplies we needed.
Helicopter delivering food and skis to our first camp.
As the summer progressed, we started to have more of an emphasis on the science side of things rather than the safety skills. We dug mass balance pits (basically just giant holes in the glacier) to see how deep the snow layer on top of the multi-year ice is. We also deployed temperature probes to determine the lapse rates of the area (how much the temperature changes with elevation).
This hole is the snow accumulated in just one winter (~6m)! If only Prospect could get
this much snow...
Deploying temperature probes on a cloudy day
Oh, and I also got to rappel into a crevasse...
We finally emerged into Canada after almost 7 weeks on the Icefield. It was a crazy adventure and an awesome time. Perpetual winter and perpetual daylight? A Nordic skier's dream come true.
Triumphant hikers after our 12 hr day bushwacking with skis
BREAD. bread? Bread.
Cooking for 60 people on a glacier is no joke.
Me, loving life and enjoying the ice. Photo: Hugh Shields
--Toodles for now! Rikz <3
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