By 8am we were all at the airport loading a huge pile of supplies into a sling net for the helicopter to take up to the Annette Plateau. I went up with the first flight with the job of pointing out our chosen drilling location to our pilot Brendan. Unfortunately the GPS co-ordinates were wrong […]
Today I jumped into a helicopter with Lawrence Kees and Alice Doughty from Victoria University Wellington. We flew up to the Annette Plateau to do some further radar work. I took the opportunity to test the snow conditions for securing tents and see if there were any possible snow caving sites nearby as a back-up.
Today the weather was an improvement over the last few days. There was a cold southerly at first after which the skies cleared. We went for a walk up the Hooker Valley, past the Mueller Lake, and up to the Hooker Glacier lake. The mountains on all sides are spectacular, with Mount Cook dominating the
Ice floats and ice falls Read More »
A beautiful cloud study this morning.. Unfortunately those layered clouds mean high winds at altitude, and are a sure sign that there will be no flying today. For confirmation and also to introduce ourselves, we drove the 5 minutes to the airport to chat to one of the pilots, Ross, who agreed that there could
Today we finally drove over to Mount Cook village. Lawrence Kees The large living area of our base at the New Zealand Alpine Club’s Unwin lodge was soon covered with STUFF. The white boxes are for storing ice cores to keep them frozen as they get transported down from the mountain and into a freezer
The overseas contingent of our team arrived on Wednesday – Yulan Zhang and Xinsheng Gao from China, and Paul Mayefski and Daniel Dixon from the University of Maine (USA). We had a meeting at the Antarctica New Zealand office to discuss details of the radar surveys of the glaciers. Our two most favoured sites are
The first stage – several weeks of preparation and amassing of equipment is over: Today the van, trailer and car were packed and ready to go. With Uwe Morgenstern, the science leader of the project in the car and myself in the van, we headed off for the Picton ferry and our first stopping point:
Ice Cores are drilled out of glaciers and analysed for clues about the way the climate has changed in the past. Our New Zealand Alpine Ice Core Expedition (NZ ALICE) is attempting to drill ice cores in the Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park. The Southern Alps make for a very challenging environment, with strong
Julians Ice Core Blog Read More »
Julian was interviewed by Jim Mora on National Radio this week. See details below: Ice secrets (duration: 9′ 21″ ) A team of international scientists is preparing to battle altitude, difficult terrain and freezing temperatures to discover the secrets of the past kept locked in ice in the Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park.Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3
Ice Secrets interview on National Radio Read More »
Today we flew up to the Annette Plateau in a Pilatus Porter ski plane. We had a big pile of gear – boxes of Radar parts, ice axes, crampons, snow shoes, food and emergency tents, sleeping gear and food. The weather was sunny and still – having expected bitter cold, we had come a bit
Ice Core Drilling Radar Survey Read More »