After 53 days of darkness, I finally saw the sun again today.
Neither this picture nor anything I type will express my monumental joy.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Glacio-speleology
When snow and ice melts on the surface of a glacier, it flows from the top of the glacier to the bed. This flowing water cuts through the ice and forms a channel, much like a river cuts through rock. In winter, there is no active melting, so there is no running water. Snow falls and closes the top of the channel. What's left is a narrow, tall ice cave. Over the course of the winter, some water is able to move through the channel and form intricate icicles and crystals. There are a few other ways that caves within glaciers can form, but it all comes back to flowing water.
My glaciology professor is the 'it' guy when it comes to studying ice caves. He wrote the book, and has been using the caves to study patterns of glacial melt and mass balance for two decades. I'm helping him with a project that will use radar to map the caves from the surface of the glacier. We did our first fieldwork on Friday. It was the third ice cave I've been in: I've already explored the cave systems in Larsbreen and Longyearbreen, the glaciers right behind my barrack. The Larsbreen cave is quite long and requires technical rope work (repel down in, and several 'waterfalls' to climb up and down once you're inside). Some friends and I spent much of last Thursday in the cave. We took an hour and half longer than we thought we would, and our worried friends back home called the governor and red cross. By the time we got back, the red cross had mobilized a crevasse rescue team, and tensions were running high. Thankfully the situation was resolved without much difficulty-- the governor decided that no party was at fault and everyone had acted how they should have. This is a dangerous place, and its nice to know that the systems that are in place to keep us all safe really DO work.
I'm hooked on caving though. I want to keep exploring. I want to learn about formations. I'm curious as to how the caves can be used to study glacier dynamics over time. They allow you to explore the inside of a glacier- an incredibly unique opportunity that is otherwise only possible with extensive drilling.
I'm still really bad at ice climbing (what happens when you give a naturally clumsy person shoes with massive spikes and two ice axes, then ask them to climb something slippery? Bad things. I have huge bruises to prove it). Turns out I'm also quite bad at snowmobile driving-- I flipped my scooter 3 times while doing fieldwork yesterday. Oops. Hey, driving in 4 feet of soft powder on steep slopes is really hard.
Morale of my rambling stories: I LOVE ICE CAVES!
Jeanette being lowered down
Inside the Cave, looking up
Edward Ice-Axe-HandsThursday, February 18, 2010
A day in the life: weekday
6:30 Alarm
6:35 Stumble into kitchen, blearey-eyed, and make a hasty breakfast/lunch of 1/2 loaf of home-made bread, traditional norwegian brown cheese, salami, and bananas with peanut butter.
6:45 Get dressed for -25 C and begin walk to the gym. Fall on bum once thanks to ice.
7:15 Morning swim-- it's free for students on Tuesday/Thursdays!
8:30 Leave gym, properly awake this time, just as 10,000 adorable norwegian children arrive for swim lessons.
9:00 Arrive at UNIS in time for a quick tea with friends before class.
9:15 Geography Class: cartography and remote sensing from a guest lecturer grad student who could model for GQ.
11:00 Lunch, study, research-work, hang at UNIS. Plan to get more accomplished than I actually do.
2:00 Grocery shopping, walk back to Nybyen. Hitch-hike a ride for the last 1/2 km.
3:30 Ski up Larsbreen (steeper of the two local glaciers), enjoy the pink-color on the mountaintops. The sun will return soon! Enjoy powder on the moraine, curse the ice on the glacier. Safety equipment carried: rifle, avalanche beacon, avalanche probe, shovel, extra clothes, cell phone, first aid.
6:30 Cook lasagna dinner with barrack-mates, then watch trashy vampire TV show because it's fun to be scared during 24-hour darkness. Learn 4 new Norwegian words and 1 new Finnish word over the course of the evening (not including the trashy pickup line I was forced to repeat).
9:00 Student council meeting-- argue about the budget, talk of UNIS administration drama. Digress to skiing-talk.
10:00 Celebrate random swedish holiday that nobody knows the reason for by enjoying traditional cream-filled sticky buns.
10:30 Learn to drive a stick-shift from the taxi driver who came over to celebrate the random holiday. Successfully navigate the 2 roads in Longyearbyen and don't slide off the road or hit a reindeer.
12:00 Skype/email/IM friends from home till the sugar wears off.
1:00 Crash into bed, promising myself that I'll go to bed earlier tomorrow.
Some days I climb in the evenings instead of swimming in the morning. Some days I have 6 hours of lecture and lab or field trip. Some days I go ice-caving or hiking instead of skiing. Some days I have volunteer work in the evenings other than Student Council. Some days I eat 6 meals instead of 3. Some days we celebrate a random norwegian holiday instead. But you get the idea.
p.s. see new pictures in the 'changes' post farther down the page
6:35 Stumble into kitchen, blearey-eyed, and make a hasty breakfast/lunch of 1/2 loaf of home-made bread, traditional norwegian brown cheese, salami, and bananas with peanut butter.
6:45 Get dressed for -25 C and begin walk to the gym. Fall on bum once thanks to ice.
7:15 Morning swim-- it's free for students on Tuesday/Thursdays!
8:30 Leave gym, properly awake this time, just as 10,000 adorable norwegian children arrive for swim lessons.
9:00 Arrive at UNIS in time for a quick tea with friends before class.
9:15 Geography Class: cartography and remote sensing from a guest lecturer grad student who could model for GQ.
11:00 Lunch, study, research-work, hang at UNIS. Plan to get more accomplished than I actually do.
2:00 Grocery shopping, walk back to Nybyen. Hitch-hike a ride for the last 1/2 km.
3:30 Ski up Larsbreen (steeper of the two local glaciers), enjoy the pink-color on the mountaintops. The sun will return soon! Enjoy powder on the moraine, curse the ice on the glacier. Safety equipment carried: rifle, avalanche beacon, avalanche probe, shovel, extra clothes, cell phone, first aid.
6:30 Cook lasagna dinner with barrack-mates, then watch trashy vampire TV show because it's fun to be scared during 24-hour darkness. Learn 4 new Norwegian words and 1 new Finnish word over the course of the evening (not including the trashy pickup line I was forced to repeat).
9:00 Student council meeting-- argue about the budget, talk of UNIS administration drama. Digress to skiing-talk.
10:00 Celebrate random swedish holiday that nobody knows the reason for by enjoying traditional cream-filled sticky buns.
10:30 Learn to drive a stick-shift from the taxi driver who came over to celebrate the random holiday. Successfully navigate the 2 roads in Longyearbyen and don't slide off the road or hit a reindeer.
12:00 Skype/email/IM friends from home till the sugar wears off.
1:00 Crash into bed, promising myself that I'll go to bed earlier tomorrow.
Some days I climb in the evenings instead of swimming in the morning. Some days I have 6 hours of lecture and lab or field trip. Some days I go ice-caving or hiking instead of skiing. Some days I have volunteer work in the evenings other than Student Council. Some days I eat 6 meals instead of 3. Some days we celebrate a random norwegian holiday instead. But you get the idea.
p.s. see new pictures in the 'changes' post farther down the page
Friday, February 12, 2010
Ghost towns and mines
Last weekend was spent skiing to Colesbukta-- an abandoned Russian mining village in a nearby valley. It was 45-ish km of skiing over 3 days and involved traversing the length of 1 glacier, going up and over one mountain (twice), and following a river valley. We saw the ocean, spectacular northern lights, -20C, a broken stove and a broken sled, 2 cold nights, one bear-scare, zero blisters, and many many kilometers of seemingly untouched Svalbard beauty. Winter camping in the arctic makes summer camping in Oregon seem SO cushy. I'd never before had to worry about keeping a water bottle inside my coat so it didn't freeze, or sleeping with someone else inside a 1-man bivy-sack so I didn't freeze!
Me and my trusty Pulk (sled) named Fred. He's such a drag.
A few days later I explored an abandoned mine near my dorm. There is a long and complicated history of mining in Longyearbyen, and remnants of this history are found both in the culture of the town and surrounding it on the hillsides. Exploring a condemned mine on a day when school was cancelled seemed like a good idea. I've been watching too many vampire movies though, and was creeped out the whole time.
The walk back into town from the mine. After a while we gave up on walking and slid on our bums instead.
Classes are going very well. I spend surprisingly little time in lectures and even less time studying. They don't seem to believe in homework in the arctic. I was feeling the need for a little more... academic rigor... so I went and talked to a professor about becoming involved in a research project. I'm going to start a project with him looking into how to sense the meltwater within polythermal glaciers. We'll be skiing to nearby glaciers to do fieldwork once the light returns. I could get used to this...
p.s. It wasn't really a bear. It was a sign that reflected like eyes did. Who would be silly enough to out a sign like that out in the middle of polar bear country???
Me and my trusty Pulk (sled) named Fred. He's such a drag.
Sad attempts at aurora photography. -15 degrees C + no tripod + a frozen camera battery = a LOT of blurry shots like this. You get the idea though.
Sleepin' with guns under our pillows... Everyting we do is with bears in mind.
Such peace. We saw a lot of reindeer in this river valley.
The whole crew on top of the mountain (the second time), nearly home, bodies sore.
A few days later I explored an abandoned mine near my dorm. There is a long and complicated history of mining in Longyearbyen, and remnants of this history are found both in the culture of the town and surrounding it on the hillsides. Exploring a condemned mine on a day when school was cancelled seemed like a good idea. I've been watching too many vampire movies though, and was creeped out the whole time.
My Finnish friend Jussi and I trying to look scary.
The walk back into town from the mine. After a while we gave up on walking and slid on our bums instead. Classes are going very well. I spend surprisingly little time in lectures and even less time studying. They don't seem to believe in homework in the arctic. I was feeling the need for a little more... academic rigor... so I went and talked to a professor about becoming involved in a research project. I'm going to start a project with him looking into how to sense the meltwater within polythermal glaciers. We'll be skiing to nearby glaciers to do fieldwork once the light returns. I could get used to this...
p.s. It wasn't really a bear. It was a sign that reflected like eyes did. Who would be silly enough to out a sign like that out in the middle of polar bear country???
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