Friday, February 25, 2006

Another unforgettable day in Alaska, today we drove three hours from our hotel to Denali National Park. Then we went to the Nenana River to collect some more conductive heat flux data. It was a lot different from what we were used to. There were huge holes and splits (fractures) in the ice and the ice wasn’t thick all the way through whereas in other parts of the river the ice went all the way to the bottom. Not only that but because of how the water level went down in certain areas, it had a wide variety of depths and it was very lumpy unlike lakes usually are.

 


The Nenana River near our transect

 I found that there were a lot of other differences between lake ice and river ice. For example, lakes tend to have more liquid water than rivers do and this is mainly because the rivers here get their flow and water from glaciers and when the glaciers freeze the rivers aren’t getting more water. There are even some variations between large rivers, small rivers, and rivers that have sources of water or glaciers. The larger the river, the less dramatic the water level decreases. The water level in rivers also stays higher when they have a more reliable source such as lakes rather than glaciers. Another huge difference between ice in rivers and ice in lakes is that in rivers ice jams occur during freeze up and break up but that doesn’t happen in lakes because the water is not flowing so no ice gets stuck (“jammed”), this is part of why the ice surface on lakes are a lot smoother than the bumpy, uneven ice surface on rivers.

This amazing experience didn’t stop there; afterwards, we headed up to listen to a special guest speaker, Helen Thayer. She is so inspirational and motivating, now that I’ve heard her stories there are so many things I am looking at differently now. For example, on her trip to the magnetic north pole she went days without water. I just had two cups of water before I left and I thought I was feeling dehydrated just about an hour later. Now I value water a whole lot more. Helen is so amazing, especially since she wasn’t just the 1st woman to walk solo to the magnetic north pole at the age of 50 when she did that and there were so many tough obstacles she had to go through and she didn’t even have items as high in technology as we have today since that trip was back in 1988. There were so many points in her trip that I wouldn’t have been able to get myself through and I would have quit very early on in the trip and yet she stuck it out and ended up succeeding in the end.

Plus, her adventures didn’t end there, a few years later she and her husband walked across the entire Gobi desert and Sahara desert. That was no easy trip either; they had to go through many hardships as well. That isn’t all that she has accomplished either, she was a champion 100km cross country skier, and an American luge champion. She grew up in New Zealand where she started out climbing mountains.

I highly recommend checking out more information on Helen because she really does have some amazing stories, and has done so many accomplishments, her website is www.helenthayer.com.

 

Helen Thayer and her good friend, Charlie

Image from:

http://www.newsagepress.com/auththayercharlie300.jpg

 

 

I really can’t wait till tomorrow at the Winter Fest. It is going to be so much fun, we will hopefully be able to watch an ice sculptor in action, sculpt some snow, and get a dogsled ride if we are lucky. Plus, if we are ultra lucky, we’ll be able to see the aurora tonight since it is so clear here in Denali, and the stars are absolutely beautiful!