Strong winds, Cabin Fever, and the Long Hike

Strong Winds

Friday couldn't be more perfect but Saturday, Saturday was a windy day. When we left base in the morning the skies were clear and it was a bit breezy. We were headed out for our longest hike of the trip, a treacherous 3 mile hike (6 miles round trip) up and down large mounds of rocks to the edge of the glacier. However as we approached the ice sheet, the winds became stronger and stronger. By the time we got out of the car it seemed like perhaps we were the only thing holding the car down. This particular hike would require you to walk directly into the wind. That clearly wasn't going to happen so we drove to another location to sample for the day. This locations was not too far away and the hike was only 30-40 minutes in to the sight walking along the glacier edge.

Edge of said Glacier outside of Thule AFB, Greenland August 24, 2013

I walk all the time in Seattle. Up hill, down hill, across town. I walk about 4-6 miles per day on an average day. I also enjoy hiking. When it is sunny I have been known to tackle a trail or two. But there is nothing quite like walking here in Greenland. In my time here I have walked on all sorts of terrain. There is never a trail and it is never flat. There is sometimes snow or ice. Usually it is just large piles of rocks. Big rocks, small rocks, all are pointy, this is because unlike the running water in rivers and streams that round rocks, glaciers just deposit vasts amount of material with no sorting and no rounding. Sometime you get lucky and there is dirt between the rocks but usually there isn't. Earth is dynamic beneath your feet but it is nice when you can forget that. 

Along the glacial margin

In my 5 days so far in Greenland, I have hiked in snow, ice, ankle deep grass, mud, but mostly lots and lots of rocks. I have crossed rivers in rubber boots. I have walked along active glacial moraines and a mud flow. I have crossed ice along musk ox tracks and every time we get out of the car, there is always the discussion of who has the bear spray. The distances are not immense. When we go out into the field we are usually not outside for more than 4 hours. We drive to the closest location and then cross unimaginably vast and treacherous terrain to collect samples. I usually take 3, 50mL samples of water. Others collect water or soil. The most treacherous parts are the rocks. Imagine a giant hill only it is not made of dirt or soil. There is no grass. There are only large boulders. Between the boulders are smaller cobbles. Some times there are pebbles but not always. You step gently on the rocks and see if it will move under you. If it is stable you keep walking. If it is unstable, you use all that balance you practice with yoga. It is counter intuitive but you want to walk on the smallest rocks because those fill in gaps. So if there are pebbles, walk on the pebbles. If there is dirt, oh I never thought I would come to appreciate dirt so much.

Anyhow back to the story. So it was really windy. But the second location was less so. We walked until we found a little stream and on Saturday, I was able to collect my first sample. That's right, I did science! So in the blustery conditions, I knelt beside the ice, a small hole in the ice revealed standing water below. We continued along the ice edge and there was a flowing stream below a layer of ice. Crossing the ice to kneel below the more stable side, I totally fell through the ice. And there was this split second when I had this horrible flash of me drowning in the river. But the water was only maybe 6 inches high and it was the perfect opportunity to test my new hiking boots which the woman told me were waterproof. Well water came over the top of my shoes and they stayed dry so, woo! Behold the power of Gortex. So I also took samples from this flowing stream along the glacier. This sparked a discussion about the glacial outflow pattern. Which drainage channel the water used. So we extended the hike up along the outflow and I got to see first hand how geologists solve problems. In my classes we always talk about how geologists ask a question, look for clues. This is hard to really demonstrate in the classroom. But it was interesting walking with two geologists and listening to them talk out the potential patterns based on contour maps, looking at the landscape and then physically being on the ground. Every geology class I have taken at UW has included a field trip but in a one or two day field trip you never see active research being done.

Me, dressed like the little brother from the Christmas story holding a chunk of Quartz. While in Thule, they took to writing my name on the sign out board as Quartz.

By the time we walked back from the glacier's edge the wind had kicked up enough that it was picking up small pebbles. It nearly blew you off the top of the rock mounds. When we got back to base the weather report said it was 45mph sustained winds and 67mph gusts we had just walked through. But at least it wasn't raining. When we got back to the car after walking 40+ minutes back with winds threatening to send me over the side, the leader asked me if I had been keeping watch for polar bears. I said "I was more concerned about twisting an ankle than meeting a bear". Thankfully neither happened.

Saturday night we had reservations at the TOW club for dinner. It was the 4 of us in our research party and 4 Danish people we met from the base. Usually the TOW club has a rotating menu of 3 or 4 options served at tables with white tablecloths with more silverware than you know what to do with. Although on this particular night it was a special dinner an "Asian Buffet". Two of the waitresses at the TOW club are from the Philippines and they prepared a wonderful buffet with a unique blend of Asian flavors. There was Danish style salads to start, various fish in mayonnaise with cheese and vegetables. A very flavorful pork soup with crispy rice wantons. They had fried rice, chow mein, Thai chicken panang curry, eggs rolls, crab rangoon, etc. It was an eclectic mix of Thai and Chinese flavors but tasted like real home cooking. We had a few bottles of malbec with the meal and the dinner lasted for several hours. It was good company. After dinner most of the women went home and the men went to the bar. I walked into the bar for about 2 minutes. It was cowboy night and the country music made drinking beer there unbearable.

Cabin Fever

So Saturday we unintentionally braved very very windy conditions. But on Sunday, we knew that it was not safe to go out. Winds were still 60-70 mph by the ice sheet and we found out that even on base Saturday, the winds got high enough the blew over a 1000 lb palette of construction supplies. So we were stuck on base. It wasn't rainy, it was partly cloudy but it just wasn't safe to explore. We have been very lucky on our trip. It is possible to travel thousands of miles to Greenland, spend thousands of dollars, and not be able to do any science.  But after so many nice days having even one day with no hiking, I felt restless. I walked around the entire base at least 2 or 3 times. During my restless pacing I saw more than my fair share of arctic fox. Apparently people on base feed them so they are inclined to stalk and watch people to see if they are giving out scraps.

Arctic fox stalking me on my way home from the cafeteria

A better looking arctic fox right outside the cafeteria

I wandered over to the community center. I have not really spent a lot of time on a military base, maybe they are all like this but there is a cafe with a lattes and a bar. Lounges with televisions. A library with DVDs and video games. Private internet rooms. A full arcade all on free-play, a golf simulator, a 40 person movie theater and a bowling alley. The fitness center here is open 24 hours, it has racquetball court, an indoor track, a lap pool, saunas, a weight room, cardio room, tanning bed, and massage. Unfortunately the bowling alley and sauna/locker rooms are all closed for remodeling and by the time I explored the community center they had stopped showing movies for the day. But I did manage to play 6 games of pinball, one game of terminator and one of basketball before I realized that being in an arcade by yourself is pretty boring. Even though it is an activity you mostly do alone, the atmosphere is usually kind of vibrant and noisy. Other machines beeping, people cheering or commenting. It was eerily quiet. I came home and watched the Dodgers lose to the Red Sox on tv.

The Long Hike

So Monday was rainy but no wind so we were able to do the hour + long hike to the ice cliffs. Our fearless leader had other plans so it was just me and two other female researchers heading out to the glacier. As you might have noticed from my photos, there are no trees. There is very little vegetation. However this hike was along large piles of rocks with lichen growing in between. This made the rocks squishy and in the rain a bit slick but it was still nice to walk on squishy rocks instead of pointy rocks. Lichen are a combination of fungus and photosynthetic microbes. They live together in a symbiotic relationships that allows them to populate nearly every environment on Earth including the most extreme. In biology we learn about a concept called succession. Which talks about if you start a new ecosystem the first things that arrive are lichen. Along with lichen encrusted rocks there were also some small arctic plants and I saw my very first real flower, the arctic poppy. It was a cold summer so likely these were late bloomers. The tundra is not completely barren there are some sparse grasses and plants.

Arctic Poppy

Saxifraga tricuspidata, an arctic family of plants that grow primarily in tundra. The orange spots on the rock are Lichen. I had to pull out an old 1957 Flora guide to Greenland to ID that awesome little red plant.

One of the streams we sampled

Ice Cliffs, the end of the long hike. There is a stream at the foot of the cliffs where we took samples.

Another view of the Ice Cliffs

When hiking with no trees on a flat mostly barren landscape you get your bearings from very distant points like a particular glacier on a mountain in the distance. You remember to hike back towards the right side of the far away mountain glacier until you get close enough to see the truck again. We also take GPS way points. This long hike was mostly up and down glacial outflow. Mounds and mounds of lichen covered rock. Going downhill is surprisingly more challenging than going uphill. We stopped at a large river crossing and donned some rubber boots to traverse the river. This time of year the water was maybe ankle deep but moving rapidly. In the peak of the summer it would have been above our knees. We sampled from a small stream and then again at a large stream right by the ice cliffs. The ice towers up 20-30 feet above the stream and is layered with dirt. There are a few theories about how the dirt gets into the ice but it is not conclusive. This was the point on the trip that I learned about the importance of layers. In the Pacific NW you generally layer because the temperature fluctuates a lot during the day and also the weather changes quickly. Here you layer to keep dry. You want to be as warm as you need to be without sweating. Now this is particularly challenging for me because my body is very efficient at cooling me down. Sean often jokingly calls me Sweaty Betty because if we are hiking or walking a lot in the heat or in this case in 4 layers of clothing I will sweat a lot. By the time we got to the ice cliffs, I had stripped down to one layer and a shell. Steam was pouring off my body. I was surrounded jn a vapor cloud changing the local weather and my one layer was soaked through. It looked like I had washed it. So in freezing temperatures in the middle of nowhere I stripped down to my sports bra and changed into a dry shirt. If I hadn't the wind chill from the ice on my wet skin would be freezing. Like most times where you don't know where you are going the walk back felt considerably shorter. We had our samples, science success and we were ready to head back to the base. We made a quick pit stop to look at some unique geological feature, stripping in the rocks. The stripes were caused by vegetation that grew along the center of shallow channels. Past students had done work to date the striping and the surface is less than a 1000 years old but down below the evidence of vegetation is 38,000 years old.

We headed back to base and drove out towards the original settlement in the area. Some of the people we had dinner with Saturday night invited us to come out and view an exhibit of old photographs of Greenland expeditions that took place in Thule between 1900-1930. So out by Dundas the large flat basaltic mountain near base was the original Inuit settlement and trade post. 

Dundas and the Bay

There is still some old wooden houses from the 1900s, people on base take it upon themselves to restore them and use them as cottages or in this case a small museums. The old house was three  rooms and all the walls were lined with old black and white photographs and descriptions. The photos were originally on display in Copenhagen but after the exhibit they were donated for use in Thule. All of this was organized by Danish contractors working on base. It is wonderful to see people taking such an active interest in the history of the area and the community. The photos were one of my favorite part of the trip. They showed intrepid explorers setting out with 360 sled dogs. It showed the old trading post. My favorite photo was of a young man sitting on a bed between two Inuit women and the descriptions says "young man with two pretty Inuit girls" and the man is just grinning from ear to ear. Apparently it was common for Inuit men to share their wives with travelers/visitors. Which I guess is good for genetic diversity. They also had a photo of Charles and Anne Lindbergh flying to Thule. They had a small guest book for the exhibit and the Queen of Denmark had signed it. 

From the exhibit we went out to look over the remains of an old sod hut. The area is surrounded by the ocean on two sides with ridges to shield the wind. This was the only area in Northern Greenland, I saw any grass. It was almost boggy, the grass was in soft squishy ground and high. The old Inuit fishing huts were build in circles. They used the natural morphology of the hill to build up grass walls and then built walls with sod. Much like an igloo the opening is small and down a tunnel to prevent heat escape. The one hut still standing is build with a wooden frame, no doubt traded from European settlers in the early 1900s. 

Front of the sod hut with wooden frame and igloo style entrance

Back of the sod hut

Footprint where a small non-wooden framed sod hut had been. The local people were relocated  65 miles North when the air force base was built in the 1950s.

I am a few days behind writing my blog. I write pieces of it on my phone when I get a chance. So the next post will be about my last few days in Thule including my first ever ride in a helicopter! Then we move into Greenland proper and the town of Kangerlussuaq.