Day 3 We finally arrived at Sheep Mountain Lodge a little bit after midnight on day 3. Few places get more remote and scenic than this one. The view of the mountains across the highway was amazing — probably an understatement! To put it in one way, we were amidst massive snow-clad mountains, literally at arms reach from us.

The view from our front porch!

After a short night’s sleep, we packed up all our gear to set off for the glacier.  The bags were much heavier than any of us expected but we were just excited to finally become real explorers!  We had no idea what to expect as we signed our waiver forms to go out on the Matanuska glacier.  We thought maybe we would have someone to show us the ropes, but the men at the front desk pretty much just said “good luck!”  We drove down a dirt road and suddenly a huge glacier was right there before our eyes.  While the size was intimidating, we were ready to conquer the glacier and do what we came to do- set up our flux tower.  On our way up the glacier, we walked on a thin layer of rocks with ice directly underneath.  This was not what many of us were expecting from the glacier travel.  There were many more dangerous crevasses than any of us expected as well.  The first time travelling up the glacier went very slowly.  Finally, we decided to rope up and cross a few crevasses to find a flat plot of ice to set up our tower.  We climbed hills of ice, most notable of which was about 65 degrees incline. Our ice axes came in handy to scale this one. The ice was so solid, that some of us bruised our hands. Most notable, Tim had bleeding knuckles. However, the man was so oblivious of this fact that Dr. Jackson had to tell him that he was bleeding. I would think he was simply lost in the beauty of the place. Well, we finally found a decent spot to set up our tower — it felt like a century had passed since morning. Let me give you some perspective here. Think of great white mountains all around you, covered with nothing but piles of ice and snow. AND in the middle of it all, were five lucky students and two professors, with parts of what was going to be an aluminum flux tower!

Fuel for the Glacier!

Our cabins at Sheep Mountain Lodge

we found a spot!

Setting up the tower!

Scientists from OWU make sure the details are fixed . . .

A proud team stands in front of the tower!

^ That’s what it says on their license plates, at least.

Being awful at blogs, I’m not going to draw this out: if you have not been to Alaska, GO. The moment on the flight into Anchorage that we dipped below the cloud cover, we received the most beautiful view of “purple mountain’s majesty” I could ever hope to see. I was smitten. (I even texted my parents to alert them that Anchorage was going to be my home one day. We’ll see if that happens.)

The most beautiful sight!

The days since our arrival have been long (7 to past 10, in general) but even so, they pass by quite quickly. Our first real day in Alaska, “we” drove (Dr. “Jack Daddy” Jackson did the driving; we were quiet and sleepy passengers on the 1.5 hour drive) to Whittier, a curious little port town whose winter residents number in the low hundreds. There are no single family homes; rather, residents all live in a single apartment building. We took a glacier cruise with an enthusiastic crew and few other passengers in which we were privileged to see a bit of calving and an abundance of “pure Alaska” wildlife. (Seriously, a bald eagle swooped down to the water as an orca breached the surface. AMERICA.)

Our second and third days were spent on the Matanuska glacier, our nights in the Sheep Mountain Lodge. The glacier travel was taxing, to say the least. I found out midway through the second day that the outdoorsy-type boots I had gotten for the trip had far-too-little tread,  which explained much of my slipping and sliding on the loose rock (“moraine”, debris leftover after a glacier has receded) and ice. It was fairly frustrating to be the slow-poke in the group, as I felt like a burden; apparently my mood was transparent to my fellows, as I quickly earned the nickname “Sassafrass” for my short comments and responses. But the spirits of the team (even mine, thanks to them) remained ever-high as we trekked into the glacier, harnessed up, and found a semi-flat plane on the ice for our flux tower. Just as we began to set up, the weather turned cloudy, cold, and windy, which made the two-ish-hour process fairly harrowing. But we made it (with other nicknames “Thin Skin”, “The Cable Guy”, “The Glacier Bandit”, and “Mama Downing” being generated along the way)! Our tower, with instruments to measure and record wind speed and direction, temperature, and heat radiation, stood tall and steady throughout the day and night. We managed to find it again the next day to get the data and take down the tower. We had extra time to have a snowball fight and to explore more of the snow- and ice-covered glacier terrain. One of our members had a close call with a hidden snow bridge; he fell through to the waist and revealed quite the crevasse, earning him the nickname “Crevad-ass”. On the way back from the glacier, half our team successfully attempted a “polar plunge” in a glacial lake.

Bruised and sore, we traveled to Fairbanks, a 6.5-hour drive from Sheep Mountain. We made it in time for dinner and a trip to the grocery store, then settled in to Wedgewood Resort, where we will stay until Saturday morning. Today, we listened to four lectures related to Climatology; one about Atmospheric Heat Transport (AHT) and its effects on polar amplification, another about Marine Ecology (specifically her work in using climate models coupled with models of plankton to predict various paths and outcomes), the third about Snow Pillows and using satellite data to model snow cover, and the final about Micrometeorology and a permafrost-based black spruce forest. We visited a flux tower in that very forest & climbed to its 16m-high top. We lunched at a vista from which we could see, far in the distance and fairly obscured, Mount McKinley! We visited a dredging vessel which had been used to dredge for gold, and later had dinner with the Triplehorns, an OWU alumni couple who moved to Fairbanks awhile ago (both of whom worked at the Geophysical Institute). They drove with us to a spot along the Alaska pipeline to point out the “pig” (the pipeline cleaning vessel), then wished us a good night once the mosquitoes began to get the best of us (they’re giant!!).

In brief, it’s been outstanding!

Day 2 We woke up bright and early on our second day to start our adventure.  We took a nice scenic drive from Peters Creek to Whittier through the mountains.  Boy, what a view!  Before we went into a mile-long, one way tunnel through a mountain, we got a glimpse of a beautiful frozen lake.

Dr. Jackson promised to stop on the way back, as we were getting late for our passage through the tunnel (as each direction only had a half-hour block to pass through).  When we arrived in Whittier, it was cold and rainy, but it did not dampen out spirits as we got some coffee and prepared for our 5 hour luxury glacier cruise.  We did not know what to expect on this cruise, but were soon amazed beyond our wildest dreams!  There was wildlife that we hadn’t seen before, and we were even lucky enough to see a killer whale!  We were told that was a very rare occurrence.  We also saw a few otters just “chilling” with the ice and many birds, including three or four bald eagles.  It was an unbelievable experience.  On top of all the wildlife, we saw three glaciers and even were lucky enough to see some calving!  That was an awesome sight!

No words to describe this . . . sorry!!!

DAY 1: Reaching our Destination Well, reaching most “finals,” be it a sports tournament or a job selection process, takes some work. So, why should reaching the final frontier be any different? We stood up to this as we missed our Chicago – Anchorage flight after being re-routed on our Columbus – Chicago flight which delayed us by almost an hour. Now what? Well, after a long wait during which the airline staff issued us our new boarding passes, we were set to leave for Dallas, Texas of all places, from where we would fly to Anchorage! After close to ten hours of travel, it is tough to describe how the breath-taking views of the gorgeous Alaskan mountains from the airplane instantly rejuvenated me! Our long-awaited journey had begun to unfold right in front of our eyes.

After flying into Anchorage, things became a little bit simpler.  We drove to Peters Creek to stay the night at Dr. Jackson’s parents home.  Many of us experienced our first taste of moose and reindeer in the wonderful dinner that his parents prepared for us.  The moose was actually hunted and prepared by Dr. Jackson’s father.  The best part of the dinner was the pomegranate dark chocolate that we had for dessert.  We took some of that for the road.  Then, the boys slept outside in a tent while the girls slept in an old horse stable for the night.  We are not completely sure where Dr. Jackson ended up sleeping!  It was a very chilly night, but the four boys stuffed into a tiny tent made it warm and cozy.  The weirdest part was that it didn’t get dark the entire night.  We went to bed at 11pm and it was still bright daylight!  Oh my goodness, the birds did not sleep and were chirping all night long.

Instruments not attached. This took us an hour to set up and take down the first time. Now we just have to do it on the glacier! (Thanks to Zeke for the picture.)