2017 Hoodoo Mountain, British Columbia
The second 2017 trip also involved an ERSC alum, Will Kochtitzky ’16, who returned to Carlisle to help plan and execute the first AACCRE trip to an alpine site. Will, along with Prof. Edwards and four ERSC majors (Hayat Rasul, Billy Irving, Amanda Haddock, and James Fisher ’18), expeditioned to the very wild country of northwestern British Columbia to base camp at Hoodoo Mountain volcano, which has been studied by Edwards for more than 25 years. The group was helicoptered in to a remote campsite (we effectively encouraged a large grizzly bear to vacate the area on the first trip in) to do projects aimed at mapping paleo-lake terraces, glaciovolcanic deposits, and ice characteristics for three different glaciers (Hoodoo and Twin outlet glaciers, and Hoodoo Mountain ice cap). The group excelled in this rugged terrain, cooking meals on propane stoves, sleeping inside an electrified bear fence, and collecting some very intriguing Global Positioning System measurements related to ice movements of the two valley glaciers. By sheer luck, this group was in the field during one of the hottest weeks on record (we were very glad most days to be sitting on ice!). We measured ice positions and surface elevation during the first two days of the trips, and then returned to repeat the measurements at the end of the trip. Over the 7 days of field work, we actually saw the ice move!