Ice cave - ice block sampling

I brought my crampons and ice axe on our final ice cave/cliff trip.  Turns out, if I wear two pairs of "summit" socks in the size 9 Job Master rubber boots they can take universal crampons pretty well!  In fact, they become "slip-on crampons."  Somehow I don't think the notion of slip on crampons is going to take off ;) ...but it served its purpose.  I kicked my way up the rocky permafrost behind the half frozen waterfall.  My axe bit into the ice above the waterfall well enough (better than expected for a general purpose ice axe!) that I could work my way into the ice cave above.  Above the waterfall the permafrost disappeared.  I stood in a chamber of ice.  The cavern walls glowed a faint blue.  On the floor of the chamber was an ice covered catchment with a small deposit of rounded stones in the bottom.  The image was something like an icy, zen rock garden with water silently flowing beneath the smooth, window-like ice surface and around the submerged rocks before remerging and flowing over the waterfall…I soaked it in…then, I destroyed it all.  For the sake of continuing on into the ice cave, I had to punch through the cm thick ice film in order to find footing on the cavern bottom.  This is where the slip-on job-master rigged crampons excelled, dry feet and solid footing!  Now the water was flowing freely though the cavern, no more serene blue zen-gardens.  I sort of crashed my way through the calf high icy waters, ducking around the turns and hugging the cavern walls to avoid the deepest parts of the pools.  A couple turns in the cavern narrowed and the water became too deep for my boots.  I strained to see around the next bend but could not determine how far the cave continued.  Ron took a turn with the crampons and made it past the place where I stopped.  He managed by pulling what I understood to be a chimney move, over the deep pool and through the narrow passageway; a move I considered but decided to forgo…apparently the cave ended shortly thereafter.  In retrospect I should have given the chimney move a chance!  

By that point we had moved on to taking ice core samples with an ice screw.  It’s really quite a brilliant way to collect a point sample from an ice layer!  For those folks unfamiliar with ice screws, they are open cylinders that are threaded about half way up the shaft.  “Teeth” in the end of the screw help it set and cut the ice as you screw it in.  As the screw penetrates the ice, the ice inside the screw is pushed out the back, where we collect it in a bag.  The screws are made for ice climbing protection, i.e. for clipping a climbing rope into…but they work great for collecting point samples in an ice profile.  We also used a chainsaw to collect three large basal ice blocks from the canyon walls…and nabbed a layer of clear, frozen runoff for whiskey drinking… all total, we probably carried back about 140 pounds of ice.  

4 days left

We finished up the days work at 10pm. Or we atleast called it quits, more sample analysis in the morning... I should be editing my first paper for publication, but since my brain is fried, screw it...so I'll take a few to give some updates.


Two of the Principal Investigators arrived just over a week ago, and since the transition its been go go go!  We have been racing to all of our regular sample sites (5 total: Vortac, Shelter 7, Ice cliffs, North River Bridge and Tuto)  and Ron has employed my help with some GIS work.  Most days start when we wake up around 7 or 8am.  You can usually find one of us in the lab, in pajamas, calibrating the pH meter or sterilizing buckets, with a coffee cup just an arms reach away...we drink A LOT of coffee.  Many of the past days have seen me in the lab until 9pm. and tonight 10pm...did I mention we drink A LOT of coffee?  Cest la vie!  I think the bio-team will have samples just finishing up at midnight tonight. 



...the reality is, I really can't complain too much... today was an Ice Cliff day.  The Ice cave we sample from has become a proper slot canyon.  The glacial runoff cut through the ice and permafrost, creating a snaking chasm that exposes the junction between basal ice and glacial till.  The water is low enough that you can walk into the canyon with rubber boots.  The ice walls are vertically striated with ribbons of ice that protrude from the surface.  These form as melt water drips from the surface, taking a tortuous yet consistent path down the vertical ice.  Each drip freezes in layers along the thin ridges slowly building them up.  Some of these ridges extend 4 to 5 inches out from the wall!  Beneath the ridges and a 1 inch vernier of crystal clear melt-water ice is the true glacial ice.  The glacial ice glows a faint, bright blue.  Horizontal bands from thousands of years of snow and ice deposition meander their way along the water sculpted walls.  In one section you have to double over to pass beneath two lobes of ice before the canyon opens up again.  In the back of the cave a waterfall drops 3 feet into a small plunge pool.  Above the falls the canyon becomes a proper ice cave, a bright blue tunnel extending deeper into the ice sheet...I'd venture into the tunnel, but this requires a combination of waterproof footwear and crampons...so, mom, its ok, I just don't have the gear...yet. ;)...ice features are quickly climbing my "most beautiful places" list.



Highlight numero dos! A couple weeks ago I held a peregrine falcon fledgling in my bare hands.  I got a little talon action, we're blood sisters now.  But really, it was an amazing experience.  The "bird guys" (ornithologists if you want to be technical) invited us to join them on thier last mission of the season: retrieve, measure and band the falcon fledglings nesting on the cliffs of Dundas Mt.  One of the guys rapelled down to the falcon nest and sent the birds up, one by one, in a yellow haul bag.  Mama and Papa peregrine were freaking out, flying circles around the cliffs.  It was a non stop racket from the time we approached the cliff top, until we left.  The fledglings were estimated at 25 days old.  White and fluffy, they crouched in a backpack corral, staring up at us with piercing black eyes and screeching at the top of their lungs.  The two females looks legitimately pissed, the male looked sheepish...just saying :).  The bird guys measure the fledgling wings and legs, attach a stylish, numbered ankle bracelet, take a blood sample and pluck a few feathers.  The blood will be used for isotope analysis to get information on the birds' diet.  Once all the research was done we all got a chance to hold one of the fledglings.  The fastest animal in the world feels fragile in your hands.  Beneath the soft, puffy feathers and tough chick attitude are thin, delicate bones and sinews.  Also of note: Peregrine breath is distinct...it reaks. And, David, birds do fart.  They would let one slip after a torrent of angry screeching.  It was pretty hilarious.

Ice Cliffs (8.14.2011)

Ice Cliffs (8.14.2011) - Our second, weekly sampling site is named ice cliffs or ice cave.  We sample the clean blue water that drains from the top of the ice sheet, flows down through the terminal moraine and out an ice cave, before dumping into North River.  The hike from the road is about 1.5 hrs over glacial till and tundra scrub.  We cross two rivers on the way; one of which I have yet to traverse without getting water down my boots.  I’m borrowing a pair of size 9 rubber boots that are loose on my feet and calfs.  I often take along my hiking boots and change into the rubber boots for river crossings…  But, my feet get soaked in the rubber boots anyways, either because I’ve stepped in a hole or deep channel in the river, or splashed water down the tops just in the course of walking.  Now I just plod along the whole 1.5 hr hike in my big rubber boots with wet socks (wet socks are warmer than no socks!).  Changing socks and boots gets tedious.  I’ve got this nice little rhythmic shuffle down.  

The water in the rivers we cross is cold, 2 deg. C.  Laura and I choose a less than ideal place to cross one day and my large boots filled half way with water.  With no socks on, my feet were in pain from the frigid pools in my boots.  I even stopped mid river to dump them out!   Laura and I were cracking up…oh duh, this is why we don’t ever cross here.  

After the river crossings we hike up a small valley that cuts through the terminal moraine and head south along the ice to the ice cave.  The ice cave is a cut in the terminus of the ice sheet that is scoured out by cold glacial runoff.  We cross North River, which runs parallel to the ice front, to reach the mouth of the ice cave.  There is a stark contrast between North river, a turbulent, sediment heavy flow, and the smooth clear blue ice cave runoff.  I’ve collected 20L and multiple small samples from this ice cave flow, each time the water chilling my hands to the bone within seconds.  The water is 0.1 deg. C.  If you fall in, you would have very little time before becoming hypothermic.  Our waders allow us to cross the rivers comfortably; it’s a fun feeling, freezing water compressing your legs through the waterproof overalls, and all you feel is a nice cooling effect.

The cave changes each week we visit, morphing from a cave into a canyon, its walls and roof slowly widening.  The ice walls are a glistening blue and white, scalloped and sculpted into a snaking canyon that narrows into a tunnel at the back.  

On one occasion I donned my crampons and hiked up a sloping ice ramp, working my way up the terminus of the ice sheet.  Runoff rivers snaked through the ice and funneled into the ice cliff’s canyon.  Many of these rivers had a pulsing flow.  Plugs of water would periodically disrupt the steady stream flow, gushing down the frozen, luge like channels.  From the terminus you can easily continue east onto the white expanse of the ice sheet.