Updated:
April 17, 2010

SnowSTAR-2010

Okay, here is a final update for a week or so. Matthew sent in his latest update from Barrow which covers his leg from Anaktuvuk to Barrow. Art Gelvin (that's me!), Chris Hiemstra, Dave Selkowitz, and Matt Macander are departing Sunday morning (the 18th) for their traverse. Everyone should converge in Deadhorse on Saturday the 25th.

Dispatch Barrow, April 17th, 2010

We are in Barrow tonight after a week of traveling from Anaktuvuk Pass. I pick up the narrative below.

10 April 2010: A cold clear and nice traveling day. We packed up at the Anaktuvuk Ranger Station and left about 10 AM. It had been a good rest for us at the station, but I think we were all anxious to be on the trail again. Our route had about 30 miles of backtracking: our plan was to head south from Anaktuvuk on the well-used snowmobile trail then turn west toward Chandler Lake via the valley we had come in on. We had traveled about 12 miles when I noticed that my snowmobile felt a bit like a low-rider. Each time I bumped over a hump of snow, it seemed to come down hard, and when I stopped, my running boards were down almost level with the snow. We looked under the chassis, and sure enough the right rear coil spring had broken. This was serious: not the thing to have broken at the start of a 240 mile stretch between villages.

We got out the satellite phone and started making calls. The snowmobile dealer in Fairbanks didn’t have a replacement spring, nor did a the dealer in Delta or Anchorage. Clearly, finding the part (let alone getting it to us) was going to be hard. Each dealer suggested it would be a week to 10 days to get the part. We decided to return to Anaktuvuk on the chance we could find a suitable spring there. John Burch remembered that a broken snowmobile that was at the Park Service building might have had a spring of similar size and configuration.

It took less than an hour to return. I suspect that the Christian, the ranger, was not all that happy about having his recently departed house guests return so soon. Nonetheless, we quickly located the broken machine, measured the spring, and amazingly, found it matched. About 2 hours of mechanic work by Jon and John later, the machine was fixed (and the broken machine was missing a few more parts). We were ready to leave again at

4:00 PM. During our efforts we had called a friend in Fairbanks with a similar machine, and he was ready to pull his spring off and ship it to us. Thanks Peter! Glad we did not have to use that fix.

For the second time we headed out of Anaktuvuk and west to Chandler Lake (Figure 1). The traveling was pleasant with sun and no wind, quite warm. It being a Saturday, many of the folks from Anaktuvuk were out. They particularly like to ice fish this time of year, so had been passed by several groups headed to the lake when we first set out in the morning.

About 6:00PM we met the first of the fishermen groups returning to town (Figure 2). We took a picture of Tom with one of the elders who had been out fishing. This group told us that a strong southerly wind was blowing on Chandler Lake, making the fishing unpleasant. They were returning home after some success (a few char caught). The weather was still mild and fair where we were, but we could see below us that there was blowing snow on the lake.

Figure 1: Heading west to Chandler Lake.

Figure 2: Tom Douglas and an elder from Anaktuvuk who had been ice fishing on Chandler Lake.

We descended to the lake and into the cauldron. It is hard to complain about weather since we have had unparalleled good weather on the trip so far, but the blizzard raging on the lake definitely got our attention. The snow was being drifted and whipped up about 6 feet above the ground, enough to make the visibility poor. Stinging ice crystals flew through the air and stung our faces. Fortunately, the wind was from the south and we were headed north, so with the wind was at our back. Our plan was to get down the lake, then turn west out of the big valley system the lakes lie in order to get shelter from the wind.

This worked, but in a blizzard, finding shelter can be a bit difficult and we had to settle for digging into a deep drift. We dug, and the snow blocks we excavated, we piled up as a wall. About an hours work and we were able to set up the tent in relative shelter and had a good night (Figure 3).

Figure 3: The tent dug into a drift for shelter.

11 April 2010: We awoke to nice weather the next morning, but we could see that over the Brooks Range to the south the storm still raged (Figure 4). We headed north to get farther out on the plains north of the Range before turning west to Ivotuk, which took us through a beautiful geologic formation called the Notch (Figure 5), up-turned limestone layers that have been cut through by a creek.

Figure 4: Storm clouds in the Brooks Range to the south of us: we are in sunshine and calm.

Figure 5: The Notch as viewed from the south side. Our route was right through the notch.

The day was a glorious ride over the rolling hills north of the Brooks Range, with soft snow and good weather. We had to make time as we had set up a refueling rendezvous at the airstrip at Ivotuk for 6:00 PM and we had over 80 miles to cover. Consequently, we did not stop much for photography. However, about 3:00 Pm our route crossed the Killik River at Sunday Rapids. I took a picture (Figure 6) of my companions during that brief stop.

Figure 6: A brief stop at Sunday Rapids on the Killik River. From left: Jon Holmgren, John Burch, and Tom Douglas.

Here our route rejoined the Philip Smith/J.B. Mertie route of 1924. The USGS party, after crossing the Brooks Range at Survey Pass (see our April 6th entry), had waited along the banks of the Killik River for breakup. It had been a long and trying wait of almost 2 months. The party had sledged 3 (or 4?) canoes from Nenana all the way to the Killik River, nested together (Figure 7). These were to be used for the geologic exploration they planned, but they had to wait for spring and open water. If memory serves, they actually tried to float the river too soon and got about as far as Sunday Rapids when they realized that the remaining ice threatened their boats and stopped again until the breakup was truly underway.

Figure 7: Canoes on the Killik (Mertie USGS photo, 1924).

We arrived at Ivotuk exactly when the plane arrived. Shaun of Wright’s Air Service was the pilot. I had flown with him a number of times. On board he had 105 gallons of gasoline for our hungry snowmobiles. The need for the close timing was that we wanted to pump out his barrels of gas into our 6 gallon jugs and not have to leave anything at the airstrip. This took about an hour, at which point Shaun took off and we headed for the cabin along side the strip to spend the night.

Figure 8: Wright’s Air Service Heliocourier on the strip at Ivotuk, Otuk Peak in the background left.

For me, Ivotuk is a place with good memories. I spent two springs there on a project with my family: Betsy (my wife), Skye (daughter) and son (Eli). Little has changed since those springs which I think were 2002 and 2003.

12 April 2010: From Ivotuk we followed a route we have snowmobiled three times previously making snow measurements. The route runs due north, crosses the Colville River near where it is joined by the Awuna, crossed the Kigalik River (Philip Smith descended this river in 1924), and then the Titatlik River. At the 1949 drill site of Oumalik, the route then bends to the NW and runs straight into the village of Atkasuk. We made snow measurements along the route at all the old sites. Figures 9, 10 and 11 tell this story, which isn’t all that interesting unless you like snow. It took us until the night of the 15th to get to Atkasuk.

Figure 9: A 100-m long snow measurement line, our standard station along the route.

Figure 10:

Figure 11:

16 April 2010: Atkasuk. It was good to arrive in Atkasuk. Our plan was to work with school kids on Friday, the 16th, but the kids found us as soon as we arrived and had been forewarned about the snow scientists who would come to their school. They asked us dozens of questions, as well as for cookies. Tom and I spent the day at the school, where the kids were great, with lots of curiosity and questions. The high school boys even got into the avalanche demonstration we did (using flour, salt, sugar and millet to simulate a layered snow cover for avalanches) despite the mess (Figure 12). John and Jon spent the day trouble-shooting one of the 800-cc four-stroke snowmobiles, which seemed to have a weak fuel pump.

Figure 12:

17 April 2010: We arrived in Barrow about 5:00 PM in sunny but cold (about 0°F) weather…the coldest of the trip so far. We got a nice dinner at the BASC cafeteria and tomorrow will make snow measurements around Barrow. Monday it is at the local schools, then Tuesday we head east to Prudhoe Bay and the end of the trip. It feels good to be here, but we all seem a bit tired. I will end with a nice sunset:

Figure 13: