Well, the big news as of yesterday was that Mike, Brad, and Dom successfully drilled to bedrock at the ice divide for a total depth of 208.24 meters! Our goal was 200 meters which means we surpassed that goal and can still see some nice layers in the ice. Dave, Tim and I also hand drilled a shallow 16 meter core over the last of couple days that we will use to create an estimate of spatial variability of accumulation. Think about snow falling in a forest... Some areas have really deep snow, others have almost no snow... glaciers can be pretty similar so we want to know if there is any big spatial variability of snow accumulation over the divide which will be important for core analysis and future predictive models.
SO.... today is a big day off for all of us. We are all tired because... well... when you think of it, it has been pretty much constant work since we arrived in Denali, either during the acclimatization climb or drilling on the ice divide. Even when stuck in a tent our brains have all been crazy busy, wondering if we were going to be successful at reaching our goal and planning the next moves. There has been lots of skiing lately for Dave and I collecting radar data; Tim was hard at work making sure the MET station was PERFECT... and the three of us have had quite a workout over the past of couple days digging and hand coring. The core team (Mike, Dom, and Brad) very much deserve a break because they have been under the pressure of making sure each core section comes out without dropping it, contaminating it, or damaging it.... It's expensive ice so we are all very excited to have at least one full ice core and the team has done a great job so far!
I am personally relieved, possibly selfishly, because final site selection was dependent on the radar data I collected and interpreted. I was within 5 meters of the max depth estimate (3% error) and the fact that the core looks good physically makes me very happy, relaxed, and stress free today! And wow.... Cam and Karl have been waiting for this day for over ten years. Erich and I have been waiting for this day for about 6-7 years since the first season was planned. It's been a pretty amazing experience to see such a project all the way through from the first field season to the coring season and knowing that this core will be processed and analyzed for years to come is also exciting!
So... for the day off... hmmm... well several of us have some computers and will do a little "school" work but we need some down time too so of course we have a decent selection of movies for evening hours. Mike had us watching "Pride and Prejudice" a few nights ago which we all enjoyed. Of course several comedy, fantasty and action movies are also in the selection... I am sure we will get some skiing in today on the small ski slope next to the divide... Dom has some data entry to do on the computer, as do I. Of course, Dom's idea of a day off is to go start on our next shallow accumulation ice core by digging a 2-4 meter pit at the top. We will begin coring at the bottom of the pit. (Dom has a hard time sitting still... which makes for a hard working good field partner!).
This has been my third field season with Dom, Brad, and Dave and second with Mike. Tim is the "new guy" but you would never know it. He fits in great to the team and is certainly a hard working team player. We all know each other pretty well and its pretty nice to have good people to work with in a field season like this. My take on the team is this:
I affectionately call Dom "the ox" because the guy is 6'4" and basically is a mix between the Tazmanian Devil (for energy) Superman (for strength) and Eeyore from Whinny the Poo (for relaxed personality)... well Eeyore isn't a perfect example because Dom is also a happy guy, but you get the picture! Brad is a mix between Steven Colbert and Einstein. He is incredibly hilarious and always seems to have a good answer for any science questions posed. Dave makes up how about 99.99% of all glaciologists seem to get their start. He is a skier/outdoor enthusiast (maybe a little less extreme then Glen Plake, the spiky hair ski dude from the 1980's-1990's). Dave is also our resident hobbit, perhaps Merry or Pippin from Lord of the Rings, because he is quite helpful but weighs a mere 98.5 to 140 pounds in weight, depending on the thermometer which dictates associated clothing. I consider Mike to be a mix between Socrates, Plato, or Davinci (because he is very philosophical and artistic in thought, and for his ideas which generally work best for any situation we are discussing), Emeril (the chef... Bammm!!! Mike can cook!), Mike Row (the Dirtiest Jobs guy on T.V.) for his knowledge of many random jobs, and a more talented version of Tim the Tool-man Taylor from T.V. (for his ability to fix things).
If you have ever watched the movie "mountain men", Tim pulls off the "Mountain Man" look very well with his bushy red beard. Dave said that he wonders what century it is every time Tim walks into the tent... Dave writes about team thoughts of me (Seth) next:
"Lastly, we have Seth, a glorious combination of Wyatt Earp, Braveheart and primarily, Wolverine (picture the elusive animal or the comic book hero out of x-men)."
I'm not sure where Dave was going with that mix (am I hairy? No... but I guess I should shave my face into a Wyatt Earp handlebar moustache!). Well, I better do something productive today. We have some items we do need to find.... like the missing case of trash bags. They are in ONE of the fifteen spare ice core boxes or action packer containers up here. We will likely do some inventory of the food and re-organizing of gear and plan meals for the next ten days out. We think Tim and Dave will likely head down to base camp sometime around the 10th to set up the 2nd MET station and help Erich and Liz move around ice filled core boxes that we send down around the same time. The freezer trucks arrive on the 10th in Talkeetna. If the core team drills the second core as quickly as they did the first core, we will be set up pretty well to start sending down all the cores around the 10th to 15th. That's IF everything goes well... I am searching for plywood to knock on right now...superstitions... Hope everyone is well!
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