Return to the Dry Valleys

I journeyed to the Dry Valleys during the month of November to conduct glacier surveys and maintain the network of LTER weather stations. It had been two years since my last visit and I had anticipated that things would be very different, but it turned out that I was only partially right.

Traveling though Christchurch was very different. Even though I was prepared for it, the structural damage caused by the earthquake was alarming. The two B&Bs that I stayed in years past were vacant lots and access to much of downtown is restricted. The front of the hotel I stayed in was an empty shell under steady construction. While the people I spoke with all said that folks rallied together, you could tell the disaster had taken a toll. Many folks have decided not to rebuild. I awoke my first night shaking in bed, a minor 3.something aftershock, another reminder that things were still unsettled.

McMurdo Station from Ob Hill

Upon arriving in McMurdo a familiar feeling came over me, one of timelessness. There were programmatic changes and many new faces, but many familiar faces and friends remained from years past. The same eternal hum and overheated buildings were unchanged.

Returning to the Dry Valleys was exciting. The two year break rejuvenated my sense of wonder about the Dry Valleys. I took many photos, you can check them out here. The valleys were mostly unchanged, with the exception of the rising lake levels. The rising water levels of these closed lakes have forced huts, labs, and weather stations to be moved to higher ground. Two lakes, Hoare and Chad, are now connected.

A rising Lake Bonney embraces an erratic boulder.

My work went well, thanks to the support and assistance of a fantastic group of people. I was down for a week with some bad crud, so my time in the valleys felt quick in an already condensed season. I left just as the glaciers had begun to melt. The melt season was always the most interesting time, so I mixed feelings as I left. I am always curious about how the season would turn out, would it be another big melt year? I was happy to have experienced Antarctica again to see how things were both changed and unchanged, and happy to be headed home.

White River Glacier Station 983

The deep canyon below White River Glacier is the product of fire and ice. Volcanic eruptions, bulldozing glaciers, and lahars have created a raw and dynamic landscape on the southeast slope of Mount Hood. How fast is the landscape changing? Glacial moraines, often used to indicate past glacial extents, are heavily eroded or completely absent. Repeat historical photographs offer a view to how the canyon and the glacier has changed over the past 120 years. Harry F. Reid took two photographs from either side of the White River Glacier in 1901. These photos have the potential to assist with mapping the historical glacier perimeter but finding the location of the eastern photograph, frame 983, had vexed me during two previous visits. The photograph features the glacier terminus as viewed from the east with the top of the mountain obscured by clouds. In the foreground are two tree stumps, likely remnants of the ghost forest that formed by the Old Maid eruption in the late-1700s. The ty...

Glacier Rephotos from Mount Rainier

I posted a new batch of glacier repeat photos from Mount Rainier . Mount Rainier was quite an undertaking as it’s glaciers have been studied for a long time and there were many established photo stations. Last September I traveled to the mountain as part of the Glacier Rephoto Database Project to document the photo stations and acquire new repeat photographs to record the changes. Last year was focused on the Glacier-clad Volcanoes of the Pacific Northwest. Nisqually Glacier, Station 5 Mount Rainier is a big mountain compared to the other volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest and equally big is the quantity of ice. The grandeur of the mountain and expanse of ice has attracted numerous glacier studies over the past century including a number of repeat photography projects. Perhaps the most studied is the Nisqually Glacier. The glacier has undergone many changes over the past century. The three comparison photos from Station 5 illustrate the glacier a...

Rephotos of Mount Shasta Glaciers

I visited Mount Shasta on September 7, 2012 to reoccupy glacier photo stations established by Phil Rhodes in 1974. Phil is an expert on Mount Shasta’s glaciers and photographed the glaciers for several decades. I was fortunate to meet up with Phil for the first day of photographic surveys on Hotlum Glacier. Phil was invaluable in describing routes to stations and sharing his observations. I visited 10 of his stations at Hotlum, Bolam, Whitney, and Wintun glaciers over several days to record the station locations and rephotograph the scenes. Bolam Glacier: 1977 to 2012 The photo comparisons reveal the complex changes that have been occurring on Mount Shasta since the 1970s. Bolam Glacier receded, the Lower Wintun Glacier advanced, while others appear fairly stable. Past research has shown Whitney Glacier advancing since the 1950s through the early 2000s. The surface of Whitney Glacier appears to have lowered over the past 30 years from a photo station at 10,000 ft eleva...

basagix field notes

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