Some of Earth's biggest mountains

 As part of our project on Sít' Tlein (Malaspina Glacier) we decided to do field work on the upper glacier (also known as the Seward Glacier). The goal was to deploy several radars: one to measure the ice thickness and one to measure the annual snow fall. Both of these things are very poorly constrained in the area. Since this part of the glacier is in Canada, we drove to Kluane Lake and deployed from there.

I was a bit nervous about this work, because this is an area of the world that can be hit with big storms that make it inaccessible by air for long periods of time. But we got lucky and hit an unbelievable stretch of amazing weather.

The area is incredibly spectacular. We were camped between the giant mountains of Mt. Logan, Mt. St. Elias (Yasʼéitʼaa Shaa, "the mountain behind Icy Bay), Mt. Vancouver, Mt. Augusta, Mt. Cook, ... Huge mountains on every side of us. Mt. St. Elias rises straight out of the ocean to over 5400 m (18'000 ft). Mt. Logan is even higher and is incredibly massive. It is often claimed to be the most massive non-volcanic mountain in the world.

The work was successful. We measured over 60 km of ground penetrating radar profiles to find the amount of annual snow fall, which we also verified with several shallow cores. Our deep radar recorded ice thickness to over 1500 m. Amazing to stand in the middle of this vast expanse of ice and think that the base is still at or below sea level.

Icefield Discovery put us in with their Helio Courier.

The weather was mostly good, but we did have a little bit of bad weather and even some rain.

Deep radar requires very long wavelength radars and hence very long antennas!

Our field location was well protected from wind by all the big mountains around us, but we saw some beautiful lenticular clouds all around us, indicating that it wasn't quite as calm above us.

Mt. Logan

Mt. Augusta

Mt. Cook

Mt. Logan. The top is 4,500 m (15,000 ft) above us

Slushfest at Athabasca Glacier

 We were back at Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park to download data loggers and to get things ready for the summer. Since this happened in late April we were prepared to dig out data loggers, but instead we found a melt season already well underway. A combination of a snow poor winter and a really warm spring meant that a lot of the glacier was already snow free and whatever snow was on the glacier turned into slush quickly. The warm spring also helped fuel a lot of the early forest fires in Alberta.

Snow slush, looking wet ...

The skis sometimes kept us from sinking into the wet snow, but by the end of every day we had very wet feet.

Slush avalanches

The slush avalanches are slowly moving masses of supersaturated snow. It's fascinating to watch: water saturated snow moves downglacier and piles up. If it piles up too much, the water drains and the snow then builds a dam that eventually breaks.

Because the north-facing glacier is steeper lower down we end up with a bit of a curious reverse mass balance gradient: the upper glacier is snow free before the lower glacier is.

Athabasca drilling: 50 years later

 In the 1960s one of my glaciological heroes, Charlie Raymond, did his PhD work on Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park. He figured out how the motion at the base of the glacier is distributed. This is now textbook material. We were interested in finding out how this has changed in the meantime. The glacier is now 50 m thinner, so it is basically a different glacier in the same setting. We spent most of the month of July drilling 12 holes to the bottom of the glacier and putting instruments in the holes to measure the deformation of the ice and the water pressure and electric conductivity at the bottom of the hole.

View of the Athabasca Glacier as it flows down from the Columbia Icefield

The hotwater drill set up. We heat up this water and then pump it into a hose to melt holes through about 200 m of ice.

Most of the material was flown up with helicopters, but we did have to haul up a spare heater. I put the picture in black and white, because it reminded me a bit of the methods of the Scott expedition.

Lots of melting and supraglacial rivers that eventually disappear into moulins

In addition to the borehole work we also put up several GPS stations to measure the flow of the ice

This glacier is a bit of a crazy place. Due to the proximity of the Icefield Parkway, it is amongst the world's most visited glaciers. One way to get on the glacier is on these big tired glacier buses (one of which is used by the US program in Antarctica) to drive right up on the ice.

David is checking on his borehole instruments

We also set up a radar to measure glacier velocities

Alaska Airlines flight seeing

 Every once in a while you get one of these amazing blue sky days in Southeast Alaska. That's when a routine commute turns into amazing flight seeing, and it pays off to consistently book window seats! These pictures are from a flight from Juneau to Anchorage and then back to Fairbanks.

Glacier Bay. The Tlingit name is Sit' Eeti Gheeyi (Bay in the place of glaciers).

Yakutat Glacier. We had a project there a few years ago when all that lake was still covered with ice.

West branch of Yakutat Glacier that has now separated from its tributary. Our models indicate that this glacier will entirely disappear during this century, even without any further warming.

Looking up Russell Fjord to Hubbard Glacier. The huge Mt. Logan is in the background left.

Close-up of the advancing Sit' Tlein (Hubbard) and Sit' Kusa (Turner). The Sit' Kusa enters from the left and is known for its regular and vigorous glacier surges.

The Sit' Tlein (Malaspina) with Malaspina Lake. It looks like the lake has been getting bigger since last year.

Looking across the Sit' Tlein into the tributary Seward Glacier (on the right) and Agassiz Glacier (on the left).

Lig̲aasi Áa (Icy Bay) with Yas'eit'aa Shaa (Mt. St. Elias). The Tyndall Glacier descends from the mountain at over 5,400 m down to Taan Fjord.

Lig̲aasi Áa (Icy Bay)

A look over the Bagley Icevalley, which is over 1400 m deep. In the background are the Wrangell mountains.

Denali (the Great One) is peaking out of the clouds. To its left is Sultana (The Wife, Mt. Foraker). I think Begguya (The Child, Mt. Hunter) is just peaking out between the two.

IGS meeting on Maritime Glaciers: Excursion to Tracy Arm

 We had a nice meeting of the International Glaciological Society in Juneau. This was my first in-person meeting since the start of the pandemic. It was so good to see old friends and make new connections. During the week, we had a beautiful excursion to Tracy Arm, just South of Juneau. I had not been there since 1996. What an amazing place.

A Black Bear feeding on barnacles. It's amazing how they navigate the steep fjord walls.

The South Sawyer Glacier, which has retreated significantly since I visited it in 1996.

The Sawyer Glacier. It has almost retreated out of the ocean.

This side of the glacier is grounded on a gravel bar now. The gravel provides sufficient resistance for form this beautiful fold in the ice.

A Steller  Sea Lion colony ..

... and a beautiful sunset, probably with some help from the forest fires in the interior.