Though the winds largely subsided after the first night, the marginal weather continued for the next week. The entire valley is coated with probably a foot of new snow, falling gradually or fiercely or not at all this past week. It was a bit of unfortunate timing, as we only had about a days’ work on the glacier remaining to finish up our ‘winter’ measurements, but there was little point in trying to do this given the conditions. I used the opportunity to make a bunch of phone calls to help set up other aspects of the project later in summer, as well as settle the minor crises on other projects that inevitably come up in a prolonged absence. Jason sorted through all of the mass balance and surveying data from the past month, doing quality control and figuring out what minor gaps stil...

The weather continued to deteriorate after yesterday, with the wind picking up as we went to bed. They continued to grow stronger through the night and by about 4AM both Jason and I were outside somewhat desperately trying to keep our tents from shredding or blowing away. Fortunately there was not a lot of snowfall associated with the storm at this point, just strong winds and redistribution of snow and dirt on the moraine. After securing and resecurring our sleeping tents and cook and work tents, we decided to take down the outhouse tent before it shredded completely. This was the tent we had used for a few years in the past, but it was broken and patched in multiple places and actually took us about 4 hours to set up to the point were a light breeze wouldn’t knock it down. We sat on a ...

The good weather continued, though not quite as sunny as the previous few days, so we took the opportunity to finish our mass balance and surveying. So in the morning Jason and I headed up the hill to the upper cirque, where the last of points yet-unsurveyed were remaining. It was a bit ironic that having been here for two weeks at the start of the trip, these were the last of the points. Our GPS woes for this trip have been epic, with multiple equipment and software failures conspiring against us, exacerbated by being camped at a different location from our base station for so long. We parked the machine near our old camp and skiid up to the col, taking a few minutes to enjoy the view of Hubley Glacier and rest of the Brooks Range. Hanging off a cliff a few hundred meters away was a parac...

It’s been a busy month. Actually a busy 4 or 5 months when you consider all the time spent with preparations and planning. Since we got to the glacier, I’ve barely had the chance to open any of my stuff sacks let alone change my clothes. So since it was such a clear, warm day, we decided to get clean. Jason headed off early in the morning to conduct our GPS surveys in the middle and lower cirques, while I headed up to old IGY survey spot just above our camp to take pictures. I have photos from Austin Post from this site from 1958, and I have repeated them in the past. I decided to pick a new spot for long term repeat photos, because as best as I can tell, Austin was sitting with his back against a rock bracing the camera with both hands while taking his pictures, and that site is just ...

Today we sent the last of our cores to Fairbanks. Darek had already thankfully prepared the cores for shipment the day before, so it was an easy matter to simply shuttle them down the hill, especially since our camp was now more conveniently located to both locations. It was a beautiful morning, so once Dirk got here we decided to do a little flightseeing and test out my new aerial photography camera. This camera is a 4 inch by 5 inch roll film camera, a Linhof Aerotechnika. They are no longer made, but when new cost more than $40,000, but thankfully not so much on Ebay. The main reason to use such a camera is the resolution – it allows one to use a telephoto lens to cover the same area as a wide angle lens, due the enormous size of the film. That is, the film itself has roughly the same...

For our final drilling effort, I thought it best to camp at our moraine camp and make a 10 minute commute to the site for drilling, but there was considerable objection to this from our drillers, Terry and Bella. At the moment, all of our stuff was spread between six sites on the glacier, and managing this was becoming a considerable burden to Jason and I, and the thought of yet another move after this one, during the scramble of the take-out, was not pleasant. And as we would be here for several more months, we needed to consolidate and assess what else we needed brought in, as the early June take-out would be our only opportunity for this for some time. Our scientific productivity on parts of the project unrelated to drilling was also quite low, for similar reasons. But the idea of a com...

The next morning the drill was lowered to the same depth to continue drilling, but it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t just frozen slush preventing progress last night, but a rock. We lowered the borehole camera down again, and beneath the murky water it was clear that a rock was present at 130 meters depth. Given that this was exactly the depth that our radar measurements predicted, we assumed this to be the bottom. The second hole was finished! A day or two earlier, Jason and I had uncoiled the thermistor string that goes in this hole to straighten it out and help it go down the hole easier, so dropping that down became the next project. I attached a couple large weights to the end to help it drop smoothly, and we got it all the way down without incident. ...

Drilling progress slowed substantially from the breakneck speed of the previous days. The transition to thermal drill was also a transition to day-time drilling, requiring some time to adjust to the new schedule. But the thermal drill, unfortunately, seemed cranky at being redeployed, only making it another 30 centimeters yesterday before it refused to go deeper. This morning we ran the camera down the hole to see what the objection was. Though it was a little murky down there due to adding some ethanol and it mixing with the motor and cuttings, etc, it was clear that there was at least a small rock there, and that’s all it would take to stop thermal drill. So the plan today was to go back to the mechanical drill, this time during the day, taking advantage the heat of the day to keep the...

With over 150 meters of core sitting chilled in our freezer, it was time to start getting them back to civilization for eventual analysis. Moving this much ice, however, is no minor task. The basic plan was to have Dirk use his Beaver to shuttle loads directly to Fairbanks. Going directly to Fairbanks eliminates issues of the plane breaking down somewhere, but adds extra complication in that the fuel needed for the long flight eats into the available payload for ice. Given this and the uncertainties of snow conditions for taking off with heavy loads, we were planning on only 700-800 pounds per load, substantially less than what we were able to load on our put in flights. When packaged in their protected cardboard tubing, the total weight is about 2800 pounds, so we are looking at 4 flights...

As we returned from the wier late the night before, the drill team was waking up and preparing for a night of drilling. With the delays caused by hitting a rock and having to start a new hole, we were feeling the time pressure of completing the 3 holes that we planned (I had already dropped a fourth hole planned in my initial proposal). If we were to hit a rock on this 2nd attempt, there would be little chance to start a 3rd attempt and complete the final hole, which was over 200 meters deep. So at this point, there seemed to be no certainty that we would even complete 2 of the planned holes. Initially I had proposed using a hot water drill for these holes, which takes only a day or so to make a hole, so we began revisiting that option and checked whether such a drill could be flown up her...