The Ithaka - Finally

March 7, 2015

Another beautiful day, Churchill-wise, with low winds and high temps around 0F.  But tell that to my toes after being out awhile. I really have to always use foot warmers although I do plan to try out the plastic bag trick: sock liner, plastic bag that won't bunch up somehow, then the couple of wool socks. Note: if you are coming up here or anywhere really cold and plan to be outside for awhile, buy your boots at least two sizes too big so you can comfortably fit in multiple wool socks and foot warmers. I wear a size 9 but got size 11 LLBean boots and was considering 12s.

Back on track. Went out with the 4 North of 58 participants, Lesya, and Karen in komatiks out to the Ithaka.

Check the link but essentially it is a wreck of a small ship that was grounded during a storm back in the 60s on the very low slope tidal area (varies but can be from 1.2 to 6 miles of boulder strewn landscape which can make kayaking a daunting to life-threatening task for the possibly certifiable - read the book "Paddle to the Arctic" to see what I mean). It hasn't budged since. In the summer one can walk out to it. No vendors out there to sell hot chocolate or t-shirts.

Why the "finally"? Last year Linda and I went out and, for me, it was an unmitigated disaster as Linda has reported in her blog. My glasses frosted over, my ski goggles frosted inside, my two camera lenses frosted over, and all my batteries died. I walked around a little blindly and was glad I didn't die.

This year everything was working fine perhaps due to the use of Aquaseal Super Sea Drops on my glasses (thanks to Judith from Earthwatch). We walked around, inside, took pictures of it and the snow, and left with another check on my bucket list.

On the way back we stopped, with my toes protesting, to dig a 20 cm snow pit on the tundra and take temperature measurements in the two snow layers unearthed, weigh the layers, and check for snow type. Snow type is really fascinating. If you can see it. I can't with my glasses and goggles on and I was not about to take off the goggles just in case. Anyways, it's something the snow researchers use to characterize the many different snow pack crystals based on maximum size of crystals in a given layer as well as faceting.

Snow pack is of interest up here because of its water content. Snow pack is very variable up here. On the wind blown areas it is relatively low in depth but hard enough to sculpture which nature is good at. And it squeaks often with a hollow sound when you walk on it. In the forested areas it is deceptively deep and soft and it's fun watching others, not me, try to get back up when they fall in their mandatory snowshoes. The forested deep snow packs also have the most interesting crystals especially near the ground where they generally have melted and reformed into large faceted plates of great beauty.

Warmly back at the Center, for some reason I was quite tired and went to take a nap at 8:00 only to fall asleep. But there were no auroras that night and no social events of note.

All for now.