field trip

Apr. 15
Kangerlussuaq

Lowest temperature of trip:  -22 F
Lowest high of trip:  1 F
Highest temp of trip:  18 F

Auroras seen:  5

      are you all clicking on the photos?  at least when it moves you?  because this one, for example, looks even better when you can see those stars.

This has been one of the hardest few weeks of my life, which makes me wonder how honest this blog has been.  Did that come through?  Should I have written something that was more raw, that didn't care if a the haters got access to it?  A couple google searches doesn't bring it up.  Unless I search for 'aquateer' in which case it comes in at #7.  I guess that's what you get when you use a made-up word.

This is my last post from Greenland, but I hope to keep this going.  My first concept of an aquateer blog or website was something concerning water, a topic I profess at least to care deeply about.  I thought I could alternate between informative calls to action on privatization of water rights, aesthetically stirring pictures of water in all its forms, and quirky or humorous water-related topics.  Not too preachy, not too frivolous.  But then here I was flying over the second-largest piece of frozen water on Earth, and I thought, well, why not start now, whether I know what I'm doing or not.

Speaking of that ice cap, I got to actually stand on it yesterday.  It's maybe a 90-minute drive from town (or I hear more when the snow melts to reveal a rutted, washboarded road.) And on the way we saw a fantastic mr. arctic fox posing like a wolf (I wish I'd raised a fist in respect) and on the way back we saw a reindeer.  I could show you the photos, but the reindeer is like 19 pixels big, and the Arctic fox photo needs that Hollywood "enhance" plug-in they're always using in the movies but I haven't bought yet.  I did see a hippo though:

 It was pretty darn cool hiking around on the ice sheet.  It was still covered by snow, which made it easier.  And then we went to the Russell Glacier calving front and could actually hear it popping and creaking.  And we could walk over and pick up glassy cubes of ice that had recently fallen off, ranging in size from a mango to a breadbox to an acme safe.

Russell Glacier terminus

I was kind of hoping this would calve while we were there.  And by kind of, I meant, bring it on!  I'm ready to make a dash for safety!

The last couple days, Kathryn and I chose not to fly, for a variety of reasons.  I think it was a good call; we didn't miss much in terms of scenery, and with the much-appreciated help of our peeps back at Goddard, we did get another video out.  (it was on the NASA website too, but I like to get those youtube hits up.)

And despite a sleep deficit, I got out one more time to snap some auroras.  I could do this every night for ever and ever.  There was supposed to be a significant storm, and as you can see above, they were quite pretty for a while, but by midnight or so they'd faded.  But I still had fun out there with the cosmos.  Billions of snowflakes around, billions of stars above.  It was not easy, and I was far from perfect, but I'm very glad I went to Greenland.