Today Is The Day
Packing for the Arctic is an adventure in itself. I packed for climate, exploration, and work on an ice sheet. Base layers, wool or any material that will not hold water, fleece, and warm socks were top of the list. Had to get a pair of good sunglasses and ski goggles to avoid a sunburn on the back of the eyeballs. Yes, you read that correctly, the back of the eyeballs. We learned that during one of the safety training sessions and I did not like it one bit. I have a number of jackets, snow pants, rain pants, and every other kind of pant possible. We were able to send the heavy cold weather clothing to Greenland weeks ago, so that made things a bit easier on this end.
During cold weather training a few weeks ago in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, I watched the team put together kits that included climbing harnesses, ropes, belay devices, and many locking carabiners. Glaciers and their immediate surroundings present many dangers for humans, such as crevasses and glacier mills into which one might fall, heavily crevassed ice falls, snow and ice avalanches from the side walls and, along the flanks, dumping of great boulders, ponding and floods from melt water. Safety is taken very seriously.
Photography
Photography saved my life in numerous ways and it is my primary way of communicating what I am thinking, feeling, and passionate about. I am the PolarTREC teacher and expedition photographer. My researcher and I will be collaborating to create imagery to tell the the story of the Greenland Subglacial Tremor Project. We are hoping you will like what you see and learn some things about glacier dynamics you may not already know.
Travel
In about an hour I will drive to my friend Jenny's house and onto Boston after a quick stop in Portland to give my boy a hug. Polar scientists typically are gone for months at a time away from families, so three weeks isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things. Dr. Das is looking forward to actually staying in a house while in Greenland. She typically spends her nights on the glacier itself. We will travel together today to Amsterdam, then onto Copenhagen, Denmark where we will stay for a couple of days awaiting the rest of the team to arrive. We then will board our Air Greenland flight to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland's major international transport hub. From there we will fly north to our destination, Ilulissat, a coastal town in western Greenland and birthplace of the famous Arctic explorer, local-born explorer Knud Rasmussen.
We will be in touch soon.
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