Sunday, June 20: Trip to the top of the world

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 6:38 am

As I have mentioned before, Sunday is a day of rest and play for most people at Toolik (except for the Cinderellas of Science in Lab 4; Penney and Amanda worked ALL day and long into the night!).

Yo and I (and 16 others) left Toolik Lake around 9:00 for the ball, er, Brooks Range, heading towards Gates Peak.

The view of the Brooks Range from Island Lake. Gates Peak at the top of the largest ice field at the right side of the picture.

It was an extraordinary hike in nearly every way.

We forded the Atigun Creek.

And tromped across the tundra.

Hiked up a valley carved by streams.

On the way up, we saw evidence of Dall sheep (for sure) and fox (pretty sure) and marmot (I think)

Here is a tuft of Dall sheep fur at an area that the sheep apparently used as a pasture…. Lots of muddy footprints, well-chewed plants and tufts of hair were left behind (photos of fox evidence available on request)[/i]

We stopped for lunch shortly before we arrived at the cirque (glacier-carved ice-scooped valley) at the top of the stream valley.

I can be VERY fierce… I bite apples in two with my bare teeth!

We scrambled up the cirque’s wall of broken stone.

[i]Notice the layers of sedimentary rock in the background; formed in muddy oceans millions of years ago, they were forced upward when the Pacific Plate crashed into the North American Plate. The layers look like they have been tilted because they were. Bonus points if you find the specks that are people coming up the slope.

Mountain tops dominated the horizon in three directions.

We continued climbing, skirting the edge of a mountain peak, clambering over talus (large, loose stones). The slope was steep, the footing treacherous and the going slow. The view from the next summit we reached was worth the effort!

The sun ducked behind some clouds, the wind flew up the sides of the mountain and we enjoyed some snacks and stupid science jokes (which everyone understood! Oh, the joys of being around other scientifically-inclined people!).

On the way down, we found a long stretch of snow and skated down 2,000 vertical feet.

By the time we returned to the tundra (9:00 p.m.), the sun was sinking behind the mountains to the west, sliding lower and more northerly in the sky.

We returned exhausted and elated (and were warmly greeted by swarms of mosquitoes). After throwing down some food and reading a chapter of a trashy novel on the couch in the dining hall, I swung by the lab to find Penney and Amanda still hard at work. Feeling a bit chagrined, I washed vials and beakers for tomorrow’s experiments.

Interesting Fact to Make You Smarter
Dandelions (or their relatives) grow even here!