Kaskawulsh and Kluane Glaciers, 2018
The 2018 field season has been characterized by a couple brief but exciting visits to locations old and new within our Kluane field area. In May, M.Sc. candidate Dave Bigelow tagged along with Luke Copland and Christine Dow for a long day of digging on the Kaskawulsh and Lowell Glaciers. Dave returned with a nice set of winter balance measurements. Dave returned to the field with Gwenn Flowers and Ph.D. candidate Erik Young in July for an intensive radar and airborne photographic survey of the Kaskawulsh Glacier, along with the deployment of a new automatic weather station in the range and several time-lapse cameras. The team, joined on one day by Carmen Wong (Ecologist Team Leader, Kluane National Park and Reserve), successfully crossed the Kaskawulsh and its tributaries 8 times with over 40m of garden hose protecting the 5 MHz radar antennas. The BSI IceRadar system detected the glacier bed beneath 800+ metres of ice! Meanwhile, Erik took thousands of photos with which to create DEMs of the glacier surface using structure-from-motion software. In a thrilling finish to the trip, the team happened upon a surging glacier in the headwaters of the Donjek River while performing a reconnaissance of the nearby Kluane Glacier. Click here for a video of the fly-over.
