Updated:
April 6, 2010

SnowSTAR-2010

This year there will be two teams of researchers heading out on two different traverses to conduct snow surveys. The first team, SnowSTAR-2010-West consists of Matthew Sturm, Jon Holmgren, John Burch, and Henry Huntington. They have recently embarked on a traverse that will take them from Fairbanks to Barrow then over to Prudhoe Bay, over the course of four weeks.

Team two, SnowSTAR-2010-East, will consist of Art Gelvin, Chris Hiemstra, and Dave Selkowitz. Their departure will occur on April 18th, they will take a course that will take them along the "Haul Road", measuring snow depth and SWE for about a week. Both teams will eventually meet up at Toolik Lake. With some members departing and others joining, Team SnowNet will conduct an intensive snow survey at Imnavait Creek.

The adventures of all the teams will be cronicled here and here is the latest report from Matthew as they report from Manley Hot Springs.

March 29, 2010:

This from Manley Hot Springs on the 4th day of the trip. The trip has gone well so far. The first day (March 26th) we traveled about 30 miles down the Tanana River and camped on Hot Slough.  The traveling was good and we made good time. Near camp we measured snow in a black spruce forest and in a poplar grove. The snow was about 25 cm deep, mostly all depth hoar.  In camp we did a little more sorting of gear and settled in for the night.  Henry cooked some sort of shrimp soup.

Henry Huntington packing at the start of the trip.

John Burch putting on his traveling suit at the start of the trip.

There were tracks and scat from a coyote near our camp…newcomers to the Interior of Alaska according to John, but often prey for wolves.  The river was blown clear of snow in many places, where the ice was about 3’ thick and quite clear. We could see pebbles on the bottom of Hot Slough through the ice.  The ice reminded us of the thick black ice on Great Bear Lake during SnowSTAR2007.

The next day (March 27th) we proceeded downriver, passing by the road town of Nenana, famous for erecting a tripod on the ice as part of a pool to guess when the ice will break out . We found we were missing a few items, like a pot lid. Henry bought a gold pan for a lid…so now we can either cook, or get rich panning for gold.

The tripod on the ice of the Nenana River just off from the road and railroad town of Nenana.

The route from Nenana was west on the Commissioners trail, which appears to have been a pioneer route for a road to Nome(?) built sometime in the 1950s, we think.  This trail is straight-straigth-straight, drawing a bee-line across the flats south of the Tanana River.  As a consequence the trail crosses the hills steeply making whoop-de-doo bumps that was hard on our sleds. We learned to slow down at the crest of each ridge because the slope on the far side might be very steep, Much of this area burnt last summer in a forest fire leaving a sooty and in places strange-looking landscape.

Burnt tussocks along the Commissioners Trail.

We camped just west of the Kantishna River. Both Jon Holmgren and Jon Burch have cabins on the upper Kantishna, so they know this area well.  We could see spume and blowing snow out on the main Tanana River from our camp, but we were well sheltered by the trees and had a good and toasty night, with the temperature hardly getting down below 0°F.  We found that the snow was difficult to sample because it was so fragile and coarse-grained (depth hoar).

Jon sampling for SWE (snow water equivalent) in a recently burnt spruce forest.

On the 28th we came out on the Tanana River and had the unusual experience of having to snowmobile through sand for several hundred feet.  Then we found the Iron Dog trail, still well marked and followed it into the boat landing at Manley, where we camped for the night. Backtracking on a sled dog trail Henry and I found a good spot to measure snow in a wet meadow and a spruce forest. So far, the snow seems the same in depth, water equivalent and texture to the snow in Fairbanks.

Today we worked with the students at the Gladys Dart School in Manley.  We talked about snow, dug snow pits, did an avalanche demonstration, and looked at animal tracks in the snow and what made the tracks.  The kids liked the bear footprints best. 

An avalanche demo using flour, sugar, millet and potato flakes.

Tonight we hope to arrive in Tanana where we will turn north to Allakaket. The weather is very warm and we are looking forward to getting farther North and colder temperatures