28 July 2007 First night in the field

Journal

Peggy's Weather Report from Tolsona Campground:

Time: 4:45 pm Temperature: 20.3 C Humidity: 51.0 % Wind: 10 km/hr from S Clouds: Cumulus Cloud Cover: overcast Light level: 2121 Lux Water temperature: 16.7 C

Today we left for the field.

At breakfast, Caleb discovered the local newspaper was giving mixed messages. Could both these headlines be true? Discuss among yourselves.

Caleb reads the paper. One headline says "Alaska temperature on the rise" while the other says, "July readings a tad lower than ussual."

It was time to get started on the research. Greyling Lake here we come. Of course it did not turn out exactly as planned! We took off from Anchorage headed for Tolsona which is a four hour drive north.

Team taking off for expedition — The truck is packed and we are off to Tolsona to start the expedition.

We all take off in the team truck.

Beautiful day and the views were fantastic. We stopped half way for breakfast and realized we were missing a vital cable for uploading temperature data from the probes in the field. We searched everywhere for it.

Looking for cable on way to Tolsona. We must turn back.

Gear has to be reorganized trying to find the cable.

Plus there were issues with the software! In the mean time Robin was checking the views. He loves it here! Reminds him of Sweden.

Robin thinks mountains remind him of Sweden — Robin thinks these mountains are gorgeous, just like those in Sweden.

The mountains remind Robin of Sweden!

So back we went to Anchorage to the U-Haul storage area to pick up the vital cord and with a few phone calls and transferring the program from one computer to another, all was working.

Chris and Caleb problem solve computer problem before we can head off.

Caleb and Chris try to solve the problems.

I sat in the back seat on my computer and worked with photos. I wanted to upload as many as possible before we left civilization and I would be communicating slowly by modem and satellite phone from the field. Luckily sitting there in the parking lot at U-Haul I found an open wireless connection and furiously uploaded, prepared, and sent pictures to ARCUS.

I am madly filing photos from free wireless I picked up from truck before we leave for field.*

We took off and retraced our steps towards Tolsona and stopped to see the Matanuska GlacierA mass of ice that persists for many years and notably deforms and flows under the influence of gravity..