JUST A GODDAMNED PIECE OF PAPER

There seems to be some contention as to whether or not former U.S. president George W. Bush said "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!".

http://www.factcheck.org/2007/12/bush-the-constitution-a-goddamned-piece-of-paper/

But the fact of the matter is, it might as well be considered in those terms by former and current U.S. administrations. And ever more so now, under the Democratic Obama administration.

The brutal repression of Occupy Wall Street protestors in NYC, Portland, OR, Oakland, and of University of California Berkeley and Davis students reached a pinnacle last week. When peacefully protesting students at your lead editor's formerly beloved alma mater, the University of California, Davis, were tortured by the campus police with pepper spray because they linked arms and would not get to their feet. Not just spraying at them, but in their faces and mouths. In the words of one witness:

Additionally, Nathan Brown, an assistant English professor at UC Davis issued a scathing open letter to Chancellor Katehi asking on behalf of The Davis Faculty Association that she step down.
Brown details the pepper spraying incident:

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

http://sfist.com/2011/11/19/video_uc_davis_chancellors_eerily_s.php

I was fortunate enough to have attended this University in the 1980s, when it was still relatively affordable, and the state of California was able to provide generous assistance to serious students in attendance there. It was, and is a very prestigious University, internationally recognised for the strength of it's scientific research in many disciplines. And set in the quiet, peaceful agricultural area of the lower Sacramento Valley. Up until now, UC Berkeley was always considered the "activist" university, whilst Davis was looked upon as a very serious, disciplined, and in some ways, boring campus. That was never my impression though, there were alot of counter-culture influences when I attended, and still are.

Starting in the late 1980s, continued state and federal budget cuts, combined with skyrocketing fees/tuition, and corruption/collusion between the University of California system and student loan lenders, has left many students holding debts in the tens of thousands of dollars upon graduation. And, with fewer and fewer jobs available, no real way to even begin repaying that burden. Which is why many students at campuses all over the country are joining the Occupy Wall Street movement.

This kind of brutal and inhuman treatment of peaceful protestors is a direct result of the increasing militarisation of the police forces in the U.S., which has occurred since the 1980s. Former civil rights attorney and constitutional scholar Glenn Greenwald wrote an exceptionally thorough and important article documenting the brutality at UC Davis, and it's greater meaning. We think it's highly worthy of reading in its entirety:

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/20/the_roots_of_the_uc_davis_pepper_spraying/singleton/

The roots of the UC-Davis pepper-spraying  
By Glenn Greenwald 

(updated below)

The now-viral video of police officers in their Robocop costumes sadistically pepper-spraying peaceful, sitting protesters at UC-Davis (details here) shows a police state in its pure form. It’s easy to be outraged by this incident as though it’s some sort of shocking aberration, but that is exactly what it is not. The Atlantic‘s Garance Franke-Ruta adeptly demonstrates with an assemblage of video how common such excessive police force has been in response to the Occupy protests. Along those lines, there are several points to note about this incident and what it reflects:

(1) Despite all the rights of free speech and assembly flamboyantly guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, the reality is that punishing the exercise of those rights with police force and state violence has been the reflexive response in America for quite some time. As Franke-Ruta put it, “America has a very long history of protests that meet with excessive or violent response, most vividly recorded in the second half of the 20th century.” Digby yesterday recounted a similar though even worse incident aimed at environmental protesters.

The intent and effect of such abuse is that it renders those guaranteed freedoms meaningless. If a population becomes bullied or intimidated out of exercising rights offered on paper, those rights effectively cease to exist. Every time the citizenry watches peaceful protesters getting pepper-sprayed — or hears that an Occupy protester suffered brain damage and almost died after being shot in the skull with a rubber bullet — many become increasingly fearful of participating in this citizen movement, and also become fearful in general of exercising their rights in a way that is bothersome or threatening to those in power.

That’s a natural response, and it’s exactly what the climate of fear imposed by all abusive police state actions is intended to achieve: to coerce citizens to “decide” on their own to be passive and compliant — to refrain from exercising their rights — out of fear of what will happen if they don’t.

The genius of this approach is how insidious its effects are: because the rights continue to be offered on paper, the citizenry continues to believe it is free. They believe that they are free to do everything they choose to do, because they have been “persuaded” — through fear and intimidation — to passively accept the status quo. As Rosa Luxemburg so perfectly put it: “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” Someone who sits at home and never protests or effectively challenges power factions will not realize that their rights of speech and assembly have been effectively eroded because they never seek to exercise those rights; it’s only when we see steadfast, courageous resistance from the likes of these UC-Davis students is this erosion of rights manifest.

Pervasive police abuses and intimidation tactics applied to peaceful protesters — pepper-spray, assault rifles, tasers, tear gas and the rest — not only harm their victims but also the relationship of the citizenry to the government and the set of core political rights. Implanting fear of authorities in the heart of the citizenry is a far more effective means of tyranny than overtly denying rights. That’s exactly what incidents like this are intended to achieve.

Overzealous prosecution of those who engage in peaceful political protest (which we’ve seen more and more of over the last several years) as well as rampant secrecy and the sprawling Surveillance State are the close cousins of excessive police force in both intent and effect: they are all about deterring meaningful challenges to those in power through the exercise of basic rights. Rights are so much more effectively destroyed by bullying a citizenry out of wanting to exercise them than any other means. These two short video clips — regarding the openly abusive treatment of Bradley Manning and the extra-judicial attempt to destroy WikiLeaks — are how I’ve been trying to make this point over the past month in the various speeches I’ve given around the country:

 (2) Although excessive police force has long been a reflexive response to American political protests, two developments in the post-9/11 world have exacerbated this. The first is that the U.S. Government — in the name of Terrorism — has aggressively para-militarized the nation’s domestic police forces by lavishing them with countless military-style weapons and other war-like technologies, training them in war-zone military tactics, and generally imposing a war mentality on them. Arming domestic police forces with para-military weaponry will ensure their systematic use even in the absence of a Terrorist attack on U.S. soil; they will simply find other, increasingly permissive uses for those weapons. Responding to peaceful protests and other expressions of growing citizenry unrest with brute force is a direct by-product of what we’ve allowed to be done to America’s domestic police forces in the name of the War on Terror (and, before that, in the name of the War on Drugs).

The second exacerbating development is more subtle but more important: the authoritarian mentality that has been nourished in the name of Terrorism. It’s a very small step to go from supporting the abuse of defenseless detainees (including one’s fellow citizens) to supporting the pepper-spraying and tasering of non-violent political protesters. It’s an even smaller step to go from supporting the power of the President to imprison or kill anyone he wants (including one’s fellow citizens and even their teenaged children) with no transparency, checks or due process to supporting the power of the police and the authorities who command them to punish with force anyone who commits the “crime” of non-compliance. At the root of all of those views is the classic authoritarian mindset: reflexive support for authority, contempt for those who challenge them, and a blind faith in their unilateral, unchecked decisions regarding who is Bad and deserves state-issued punishment.

It’s anything but surprising that a country that has cheered as its Presidents seize the most limitless powers against allegedly Bad People — all as part of the ultimate instrument of citizen degradation: Endless War — cheer just as loudly when that same mindset is applied at home to domestic trouble-makers. The supreme threat has never been from foreign Terrorists, but rather from what was done by our own public- and private-sector authorities (and the mentality they successfully implanted) in their name.

(3) Beyond the light it is shedding on how power is really exercised in the U.S., this UC-Davis episode underscores why I continue to view the Occupy movement as one of the most exciting, inspiring and important political developments in many years. What’s most striking about that UC-Davis video isn’t the depraved casualness of the officer’s dousing the protesters’ faces with a chemical agent; it’s how most of the protesters resolutely sat in place and refused to move even when that happened, while the crowd chanted support (this video, taken from a slightly different vantage point, vividly shows this, beginning at 4:15). We’ve repeatedly seen acts of similar courage spawned by the Occupy movement.

It was the NYPD’s abusive pepper-spraying, followed by Mayor Bloomberg’s lawless destruction of the Zuccotti Park encampment, that prompted far more people than ever to participate in the next march across the Brooklyn Bridge. A tear gas attack on Occupy Oakland was followed by a general strike of 20,000 people. And this truly extraordinary, blunt and piercing open letter demanding the resignation of the heinous UC-Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi was written by a young, untenured Assistant Professor — Nathan Brown — who obviously decided that his principled beliefs outweigh his careerist ambitions.

This is the most important effect of the Occupy movement: acts of defiance, courage and conscience are contagious. Just as the Arab Spring clearly played some significant role in spawning, sustaining and growing the American Occupy movement, so too have the Occupy protesters emboldened one another and their fellow citizens. The protest movement is driving the proliferation of new forms of activism, citizen passion and courage, and — most important of all — a sense of possibility. For the first time in a long time, the use of force and other forms of state intimidation are not achieving their intended outcome of deterring meaningful (i.e., unsanctioned and unwanted) citizen activism, but are, instead, spurring it even more. The state reactions to these protests are both highlighting pervasive abuses of power and generating the antidote: citizen resolve to no longer accept and tolerate it. This is why I hope to see the Occupy movement — even if it adopts specific demands — remain an outsider force rather than reduce itself into garden-variety partisan electioneering: in its current form, it is demanding and re-establishing the indispensable right of dissent, defiance of unjust authority, and sustained protest.

UPDATE: Regarding the last point — the uniquely effective, inspiring activism this movement is spawning — here is video of Chancellor Katehi walking to her car while being forced to confront a wall of silent condemnation and shaming. It’s not the accountability she should face (firing), but one can see from this video that it’s quite potent nonetheless; moreover, it really reveals who the actual threats are to public safety — not the protesters but rather those using force against them:

It just so happens that this very day, this message came for your lead editor from the UC Davis Chancellor Katehi, since I am in the Alumni Association:

November 20, 2011

 Dear Alumni and Friends,

 Friday was not a day that would make anyone on our campus proud; indeed the events of the day need to guide us forward as we try to make our campus a better place of inquiry, debate, and even dissent. This past week our campus was a site of week-long peaceful demonstrations during which students were able to express their concerns about many issues facing higher education, the University of California, our campus, our nation, and the world as a whole. Those events involved multiple rallies in the Quad and an occupation of Mrak Hall which ended peacefully a day later.

 However, the events on Friday were a major deviation from that trend.  In the aftermath of the troubling events we experienced, I will attempt to provide a summary of the incident with the information now available to me and the steps we will follow going forward.

 After a week of peaceful exchange and debate, on Thursday a group of protestors including UC Davis students and other non-UC Davis affiliated individuals established an encampment of about 25 tents on the Quad. The group was reminded that while the university provides an environment for students to participate in rallies and express their concerns and frustrations through different forums, university policy does not allow such encampments on university grounds.

 On Thursday, the group stayed overnight despite repeated reminders by university staff that their encampment violated university policies and they were requested to disperse. On Friday morning, the protestors were provided with a letter explaining university policies and reminding them of the opportunities the university provides for expression.  Driven by our concern for the safety and health of the students involved in the protest, as well as other students on our campus, I made the decision not to allow encampments on the Quad during the weekend, when the general campus facilities are locked and the university staff is not widely available to provide support.

 During the early afternoon hours and because of the request to take down the tents, many students decided to dismantle their tents, a decision for which we are very thankful. However, a group of students and non-campus affiliates decided to stay.  The university police then came to dismantle the encampment.  The events of this intervention have been videotaped and widely distributed.  As indicated in various videos, the police used pepper spray against the students who were blocking the way. The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this.

 To this effect, I am forming a task force comprised of faculty, students and staff to review the events and provide to me a thorough report within 30 days.  The task force will be chosen this week and convene immediately to begin their work.  As part of this, a process will be designed that allows members of the community to express their views on this matter.  In addition, I will hold a series of meetings and forums with students, faculty and staff to listen to their concerns and hear their ideas for restoring civil discourse to the campus.  In the interim, two UC Davis police officers involved in the incident have been placed on administrative leave following their use of pepper spray.

Related to current policies,  I am asking the office of Administrative and Resource Management and the office of Student Affairs to review our policies in relation to encampments of this nature and consider whether our existing policies reflect the needs of the students at this point in time.  If our policies do not allow our students enough flexibility to express themselves, then we need to find a way to improve these policies and make them more effective and appropriate.

 Our campus is committed to providing a safe environment for all to learn freely and practice their civil rights of freedom of speech and expression.  [really? tell that to the tortured students and their families, eds.] At the same time, our campus has the responsibility to ensure the safety of all others who use the same spaces and rely on the same facilities, tools, environments and processes to practice their freedoms to work and study. [a classic fascist response, blame the victims-they had it coming, to protect public safety! just like the fascists used to say in Chile, 1973-1990, as they tortured/murdered/disappeared people with US support. eds.]

 I spoke with students this weekend and I feel their outrage. I am deeply saddened that this happened on our campus, and as chancellor, I take full responsibility for the incident.  [then you should step down, eds.] I pledge to take the actions needed to ensure this does not happen again.  I feel sorry for the harm our students were subjected to and I vow to work tirelessly to make the campus a more welcoming and safe place.

Sincerely,
 Linda P.B. Katehi
 Chancellor

I wrote back to the UC Davis Alumni Association, and told them I am renouncing my membership and any ties to the university, unless the Chancellor steps down, and the police who tortured the students are arrested and prosecuted on assault charges. That if were able, I and as many others as I could persuade, would join further protests at UC Davis, and offer whatever assistance we could to their movement.  I also made sure to mention that I will be offering assistance and support to the courageous members of the Davis Faculty Association, who are endangering their livelihoods by standing with, supporting, and trying to protect their students. Is the US Constitution just a "Goddamn Piece of Paper"? Cheers.

MALASPINA ENCOUNTER

Greetings all, forgive us for the delay in writing about my trip to the Malaspina Glacier last month, where your lead editor met with our friends in Ground-Truth Trekking, and joined them in their "Life on Ice" expedition for eight days. http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Journeys/LifeOnIce.html

Hig and Erin invited me last summer for part of this trip, in which they hope to document climate change in action, on the largest "Piedmont" glacier in Alaska, spreading out as it does on the coastal plain from it's sources in the high St. Elias mountains inland. I was honoured to accept, since they are such knowledgeable and experienced wilderness-experts and scientists. So after a few months of planning, and then two weeks of feverish preparation, during which I was working in my other position as an operational meteorologist, I left Mattie to hold down the fort at the Chugach Front Research Centre, and boarded Alaska Airlines, to head to Yakutat, on the morning of 21 October. The jumping-off point for the charter flight with Alsek Air, a local outfit in Yakutat, whose pilot Les Hartley was to take me to our meeting site with Hig and Erin, on the beach at "Alder Stream", a wider less-rocky area that at low tide, afforded enough room for Les's Cessna 185 4-seat plane on tundra tires to land and take off safely from the beach.

Hig and Erin's friend Sam Vivang also accompanied me, he is their web-designer, for the Ground Truth Site, and lives in Madison, WI. A town we admire, being as it is, one of the ultimate, and largest, progressive college towns in the country.

Sam and I met in the Juneau airport, and I re-lived to him all my good memories of living there, Juneau is a beautiful place, and culturally, very diverse and interesting. But the often wretched weather and lack of consistent winter snow, led me to move on from there in 2001. I still miss it though.

We made it to Yakutat at 1130, and were immediately met by Alsek Air, and loaded up on Les's Cessna 185. It's a small 4-6 seat plane that can take off and land in very short order, needing only 200 metres or so of a suitable stretch. Sam and I, and our gear were loaded in, and we quickly took off by 1230, and headed to the Alder Stream landing site.

Yakutat, here from the air as we departed, started as a Tlingit village, and is now home to a mixed population, making their living mainly from fishing, tourism, and some government jobs. It has the distinction of being one of the wetter sites in Alaska, receiving 343 cm of precipitation annually. On this day, we actually had dry weather, rare for October, as fall is the wettest season along the Gulf of Alaska.

We only flew at around 300 metres altitude, just very high clouds were present, and winds were relatively light, underneath high pressure ridging, which promised to hold for a few more days. Looking to the north, the huge mass of Hubbard Glacier came into view, up Yakutat Bay, whose source lies far inland in Kluane National Park in Canada, part of which is 5959 metre (19,850 ft) Mt. Logan, the second highest peak in North America.

After just a short 30 min., 55 km flight, we landed on the beach at the Alder Stream site, and quickly unloaded. Our plane to Yakutat from Juneau had been late, and so we arrived at the beach late, as the tide was quickly rising. This left Les with just a few minutes to be on the beach, before having to take off again. We rapidly shuttled our gear and supplies up onto the higher ground behind the beach, and then met with Hig, Erin, and their friend Carl Donohue, a professional wilderness guide and photographer, who had already been with them a week, and would be for at least another.

Here, Sam, on the left, Hig (in the blue vest), and Erin are inspecting the supplies while 2 year old Katmai, and 9 month old baby Lituya relax on the beach. My 34 kg (75lb) pack, in the blue, was awaiting me, which I was not looking forward to. But I had to have my Alpacka pack raft/paddle (3kg), in addition to my best weatherproof tent, clothing, and 9 days of food/fuel, so that was the best I could do.

It was just a short 6.5 km jaunt up to our first camp, where we spent two nights, west up the coastline. Walking along the beach, punctuated by two stream crossings, which Hig ferried us all across with our supplies individually in his larger two-person packraft. This was faster than all of us individually inflating/deflating our rafts, etc...

The ocean here is very powerful and turbulent, as you would expect, being the northern margin of the Gulf of Alaska, where low pressure systems are almost always present. Even though on this day, Friday the 21st of October, winds were light, underneath high pressure ridging, swells coming off the Gulf still produced powerful surf with 1.5-2 metre or more high waves, that break close in to shore, due to the steeply dropping land margin. In fact, we really needed to be on our guard, so we wouldn't get too close to any of these "shore breaks", and get swept off our feet, and into the icy cold 4C (39F) water.

We arrived to our first camp site set about 200 metres back from the beach in a Sitka Spruce forest, around 1730. After quickly setting up camp, we all had dinner, then hung out and made plans for the following few days. We decided to stay there the next day, Saturday, so all of us could get to know each other better, and see that site better. Just another 100 metres or so behind our forest camp, the Sitka Spruce were all dead standing, some kind of flood had killed them in the past few years. Behind that, one of the many streams coming off the Malaspina glacier flowed east-west. After a relaxing night (though the sound of the booming, crashing surf was very loud, even 200 metres in), the next day, Saturday, dawned dry with some sun. After a lazy breakfast, we all decided to go hiking inland, behind camp, and then around to the beach, further west, then back, to camp.

Heading just inland from camp, we quickly came into the dead spruce area. Some of these were very large and had been old, at least 100 years or more, judging by their 30-40 metre heights.

Hig thinks that multiple flooding episodes led to the demise of this area of trees, which seemed to extend several km up and down along the adjacent stream, which overran it's banks. We surmised warm, high-freezing-level storms in late summer or fall, which would have melted snows and glacier ice on the higher grounds inland, would have been the mechanism to raise the waterways so high here (and which are occurring more frequently now, especially in the last 10 years). From the looks of these standing dead trees, it was no more than five years ago, that this happened.

Heading further inland, toward the banks of the river/stream, we began to get vistas of the high St.Elias mountains, that are the source region for the Malaspina, and other glaciers around. 

These 3000-4500 metre peaks are fully encased in permanent snow and glacier ice, and form about a 200 km long NW-SE oriented wall just 15-40 km inland from the Gulf of Alaska. The amount of precipitation that these mountains receive annually is hard to even fathom, easily two to three times the 343 cm that Yakutat receives, most of it snow, above 2000 metres. We hiked around this area for a few hours, while we all talked about the stunning scenery and made our surmises about the causes of all the flooding disturbances we saw. Since Hig has a PhD in geology, and is very interested in meteorology and climatology, our discussions were very interesting and detailed.

Little two year-old Katmai was having fun just walking around, picking up things, and chattering away, as most two year-olds do. Erin was carrying baby Lituya in a pack behind her back, and she was mostly snoozing in the mild 6C (43F) afternoon. Hig and Erin took alot of precautions and care for their children. They had a large tepee-style tent, which has a wood-stove, the whole setup weighs less than 4 kg packed up. This keeps everyone warm and dry while it's raining, and allows wet clothing/gear to dry out. They had food caches set-up beforehand, and a satellite phone to rely on, in case of any emergencies. So the children were in good hands, and always able to stay warm and dry. And I was too, on the rainiest of my days there, when I would hang out with them, next to that nice little stove!

After a few hours of hiking and beach-combing, as evening began to set in, majestic 5489 metre (18,008 ft) Mt. St. Elias was out in it's full glory. This mountain is rarely climbed, due to  it's treacherous weather and highly dangerous avalanches and icefalls, from the tremendous volumes of snow and ice on it. It is the third highest peak north of Mexico, after Denali, and Mt. Logan just to the north, in Canada.  

The next day, Sunday the 23rd, was still dry and sunny. It was below freezing that morning, about -2C (28F), judging by the crunchy moss, but not a real deep/hard freeze. We packed up camp, and then set off around 1100 for our next base, Sitkagi "lagoon", a feature that did not exist ten years ago.

The first few km we were able to packraft down the stream behind camp, behind which we had our mountain views. This just took an hour or so. Then on the other side of that, about a km of beach walking on sand/pebbles. Then another stream/packraft crossing. On the other side of that, Hig, Erin, and Carl had come across a large dead sea lion a few days before, and we made sure to make lots of noise, staying all together, before venturing up to it. In case any bears were eating from and guarding it. But we saw none, or even any signs of some.

We weren't sure of the cause of this large creature's demise, no bullet holes or large wounds were in evidence, so perhaps it was disease, or some other natural cause. We didn't spend too much time here though, just to be on the safe side. From here, it was about another 5 km or so to the "lagoon". The first 3 km were nice beach-walking, like that seen by the dead sea lion, a mix of sand and small rocks. But after that, the sandy beach turned into boulder fields, requiring hopping across/through all of them.

With our heavy packs on, this slowed us down considerably. I felt quite uneasy as well, with my 34 kg pack on, since I had broken my left knee in 2007 by falling onto a boulder near the Gulkana Glacier, in the Alaska Range, and desperately wished not to repeat that experience.

We finally go to Sitkagi at 1730, by which time we only had another hour of light to set up camp. Hig and Carl set out to try and find a suitable camp spot, but were not able to. So we had to set up in an exposed spot at the foot of the "lagoon" just behind logs and rocks thrown up by the last big storms, which you can see, above. A rather precarious spot, to be sure, but we figured we could always move camp the next day, if need be. I was completely soaked in sweat then, from lugging that heavy pack, but some time that evening in Hig and Erin's warm tent by the fire, helped dry me out.

The next day, Monday the 25th of October, the weather began changing. The day started out cloudy with light rain, but not too windy, just 20-40 kph, out of the east. Hig, Erin, and the kids set out to explore the lagoon entrance, and raft further up the lagoon, which extends about a km inland. Sam and I stayed behind to walk along the beach, and then raft a little later, we were hoping the weather would improve a little. It never did, so I put my raft in around 1300, and paddled up and around the lagoon. It was raining lightly with that 20-40 kph east wind. I didn't get too close to the "lagoon" entrance though, high tide for the day was coming through, and making it rather turbulent there with strong currents and eddies. And I did not want to get caught up in one, and possibly swept back out to sea.

What Sitkagi "Lagoon" is, is an opening in the coastline formed by the melting of the glacier from seawater incursions pushed in by high storm tides. It extends back about 1.5 km from the opening, and is growing constantly, as can be seen by the falls of dirt/trees/shrubs at the base of the glacier. The Malaspina glacier is vegetated on its outer margins here because it had been so slow-moving and stable, until relatively recently, but you can see the ice just underneath. Hig thinks that this lagoon is less than ten years old, and that the at the rate the glacier is melting, combined with ever-higher storm tides pushing into the lagoon from stronger, more frequent storms, that it could end up extending back another 40-50 km within 20 years! That would be a huge change to the topography of this coastline.

That night, Monday night, rain became a little heavier and steady. Then, when we awoke Tuesday, we knew we were going to have a situation on our hands. It should be said, that 5 days previously, during the past week, both the European and American long-range numerical weather prediction models forecast a strong front to come into the area on this day, Tuesday, 10/26, with 60-100 kph winds and several cm of rain. I had texted Hig and Erin to that effect the evening before I flew in. And we had been receiving updates from my NWS colleague Dave, by text messages on Hig and Erin's satellite phone, with that forecast holding.

Above, is the surface map for Tuesday afternoon, the 26 of October. A 968 millibar surface low, with an occluded front, lay just to west of the Malaspina area, in the Northern Gulf of Alaska. This is a fairly strong low any time of the year, in this area. Note how "tightly-packed" the lines, or isobars, of pressure are, there is a very strong pressure gradient with a low that deep, meaning that strong winds will be occurring as it approaches, then passes, with strongest winds just ahead of, and with the front.

Here is the corrresponding infrared satellite image for this time, you can see the centre of the low just off the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula, when the frontal band was moving through the Malaspina area. When extra-tropical low pressure systems have that distinct "eye" looking centre, it means that they are very deep and strong, and are not to be taken lightly!

The rain had been steady all the previous night, and the winds, moderate, perhaps 30-50 kph (18-30 mph), nothing our tents couldn't handle. There was a brief let-up, even, in the morning, whilst we had breakfast, between 0800-0900. But by 0930, the storm we had been waiting for/worrying about, came in full-on.

At this time, around 0930, the winds came up easily to 70-90 kph sustained (42-55 mph) with gusts easily as high as 120 kph (75 mph). We all, Carl, Sam, Hig, Erin, the kids, and I rotated duties over the next 7 hours, continually monitoring the tents, staking/tying them down more when some of the tie-outs would come loose with the stronger gusts, and checking the log/rock jam above us, to make sure no high seas were breaking over it, which could flood us. High tide that day was around 1400. If you've never spent a day in a storm, in tents, in strong winds, may you never have to! The sound was deafening. I spent much of the day helping Erin continually brace up the inside of their taller tepee-tent, as strong wind gusts were continually trying to bring it down. The kids were surprisingly calm, considering how worried we all were. Some of the most powerful gusts, that could have been 135 kph (80 mph) were like explosions, and it was all we could do to brace it up, inside. We had to keep that woodstove going too, everyone was getting soaked, coming in and out of the howling wind and heavy rain, bracing their tents. Picture-taking was impossible, in these conditions, we didn't even try, we had other things to worry about! At one point, after some particularly strong and worrisome gusts, Erin asked if I could call the NWS on their satellite phone. I called the NWS Anchorage Forecast Office, where I used to work, and my ex-colleague Bill L., told us to expect 2-3 more hours of the strong winds. We were somewhat relieved, as it was around 1300, and were all getting tired, hoping for the best, that all our tents would survive.

Sure enough, right around 1530, the winds suddenly dropped off, almost to calm! The front was passing, and as it did, in a period of just 10 min., a burst of very heavy rain, then hail, and then snow occurred. Once that ended, we all rushed out relieved. During the strong winds, my Mountain Hardwear 3-season tent, with an extra-heavy duty rain fly, would flatten in the strongest gusts. Yet, it held, one of the poles was bent, but it was in good form. And, only a small 15 cm or so diameter little puddle of water was on the tent floor, blown in from the upwind wall. My sleeping bag and pack were dry! That was a relief. We all had a relaxing evening recovering our energy and warming up by the little woodstove, after our dinner.

We briefly checked out the beach. It was still raining/misting overall, it looked like the high tide came just up to the foot of the log/rock barrier, above us, but did not crash or flood through, another thing to be thankful for. I was fairly wet though from my times staking out my tent in the foul weather, bending over and working, the wind drove the rain right up inside my layers. All my other ones were damp from the exertion of the last several days. Hence, I went to bed with damp wool base-layers on, which I was not crazy about. But my -9C (15F) down bag, which was dry, kept me warm enough, and by morning, my body-heat had dried out my base layers.

That was also an interesting night, as when the low itself came through, all night long, heavy showers of rain and hail occurred, along with at least three thunderstorms! I slept very fitfully. When these lows, with very cold air aloft in them, are over warmer ocean waters, the airmass in their centres becomes very unstable, and these scattered, "post-frontal" heavy showers/thundershowers occur.

The next day, Wednesday, dawned cloudy and misty, and after all the heavy showers overnight, little drifts of hail and snow were on the ground, in wind-protected areas. The winds were much lighter overnight however, from the west, less than a third the strength of the strong east to southeast winds ahead of the front the afternoon before.

After breakfast and fire warm-up (it was probably only +1C or so, 34F, cold in that damp breezy weather), we all ventured out to see what changes the storm had wrought, in our local landscape. One very prominent thing, is that during rough weather, foam is generated by the higher seas crashing on the rocky shoreline, which marks the previous high tide level. This was in the late morning on Wednesday. Hig and Erin had studied the tides before coming out, and the highest, high tides of the year, were occurring this very week. In fact, the highest, high tide of the whole year, was to be on this afternoon, around 1530. After walking the beach and up to the lagoon entrance, checking out all the changes, logs thrown about, piles of debris, etc.. we came back to camp by 1400. One other thing we noticed, were large ice chunks from the glacier, which fell into the "lagoon", and then were carried out by the strong tidal surges, the previous day.

 Carl then announced he was moving his tent, and quickly. He was worried we'd all be flooded out by that highest tide, by the lagoon rising. At first, the rest of us were a little dubious, but sure enough, we could see surges of water coming into the lagoon, and the level was rising quickly!

Carl is a wilderness guide with many years of experience, and his knowledge proved invaluable here. We quickly followed suit and rapidly packed up. Here Hig and Erin are packing up their large tent, and you can see water flooding in, right in front of it. We found some suitable dry clear areas in the spruce woods, just in from this picture, and were able to all get in there, just as the entire area we had been in, went under. Where Carl and I had our tents just flooded about 10-20 cm deep, but it was a little deeper where Hig and Erin's large tent had been. These new camp sites were much better than the old exposed ones, sheltered and wind-protected, we would have been much better off there the previous day, had we been in there! That took us the rest of that day, to re-settle camp. During a quick beach excursion though, as the high tide began going out, we were all thankful for the drier, calm weather, especially when we could watch the sunset!

 We had a conference that evening, to come up with our plans for the rest of the trip. Sam and I were to be picked up at the 0930 low-tide that Saturday, the 29th, where we flew in, at the Alder Stream landing site, about 16 km back.

No big storms were expected, but due to the roughness of the beach, and the multiple stream crossings we would have to packraft across, Sam and I decided we should leave the next afternoon, after the high tide, Thursday, and at least get past the very rough 4 km or so boulder-beach section, and camp there. So we would then have a shorter 12 km hike friday to the Alder Stream site, where we could set up a nice camp, and have a relaxed final evening before departing the next day. Carl decided to accompany us back as well, for which we were grateful. He wanted to be flown out with us, and over to Icy Bay, where he would stay for several days, to try and get some good photos of Mt. St. Elias, and all around that amazing area.

That next day, Thursday, started dry, but it began to rain off and on. We all went down to the lagoon entrance in late morning, between showers, and before the high tide, to watch the waves break over the entrance.

This is how Sitkagi "Lagoon" is forming, high tides and surf break through these rocks, and push ever more water into it. This water helps to faster melt the dirt/vegetation-covered glacier ice behind it.

We couldn't stay all day though. We had to pack up, and then get moving by 1600, just after high tide, so we'd have a little more room to walk the boulder-covered beach section, but also arrive to an area to set up camp by 1800, so we'd have a little daylight left. We quickly packed, and were on our way, after saying goodbye to Hig, Erin, Katmai, and Lituya. They also offered to take any extra food we might not need. I jumped at that chance, and was able to offload at least 2 kg. Thus, my pack was much lighter, also from the food I'd eaten the past week. So now, instead of 34.1 kg (75 lbs.), my pack was down to about 27.3 kg (60 lbs.), which made a big difference in how comfortable I was, and how deftly I could manoeuver on the boulders.

As we began packing though, around 1500, steady rain set in, a real downer. Packing everything up in that, made all our gear wet. Then, as we left at 1600, the rain continued. The surf along the beach though was very beautiful.

Although the winds were relatively light, no more than 20-40 kph, large swells in the Gulf were kicking up these 2-3 metre pounders, which were incredibly loud as they boomed into the beach. The rain continued during our two hour march across the boulder beach. It took that long to just go 4 km because hopping across those wet rocks with a heavy pack is not something to do quickly, any accidents, and help will be a long time coming.

It was quite a relief to get through those by 1800, and find a nice wooded site to set up camp. However, it was raining even harder as we unpacked. What followed was my least favourite evening of the trip, setting up camp wet and sweaty (from the exertion of the walk with the heavy pack), then eating a quick meal without the heat of the woodstove from Hig and Erin' tent, got me chilled very quickly, and I had no dry layers to change into. My sleeping bag was still mostly dry, so right after dinner, in damp layers, I crawled into my tent and bag, very dispirited. It took me some time to get to sleep, being so cold/damp. But my down bag and body heat eventually dried me out at least partially, by morning.

The next day, Friday the 28th, dawned dry with just high clouds, and the forecast we'd gotten the day before was for it to stay dry the entire day and that night. What a relief! After a nice dry breakfast, we quickly were packed and on our way by 1030. And the day just kept getting nicer. By 1300, it was entirely sunny, as were all of our moods. We approached the area where the dead sea lion had been, in early afternoon, slowly, in case of bear activity. But, the sea lion had been washed away in the big storm Tuesday. For which we were relieved, one less thing to worry about. We had two quick pack-raft crossings to do, then a nice 4 km section through the woods, where our first camp had been after our arrival. We made good time through those areas.

One interesting thing we noticed, was that a small area of higher ground which separated the beach, from the small river behind, which flowed out from the glacier, had been breached during the Tuesday storm. Another few storms like that (there are always several every fall/winter), and it will become much bigger. Eventually eroding enough that the river mouth may then shift to this area, about 1.5 km upstream from the current one. Which will then allow high tides to enter into the river that much further in, hastening erosion there, etc... You can see how dynamic the terrain here is, and how quickly things can change.

After coming out of the spruce woods, the beach was so littered with debris, and it was high tide. So we had to go through Alder thickets just inland, and cross two streams on logs, which was quite dicey with our heavy packs on. Fortunately Carl helped both Sam and I across these, first by testing them out without his pack on, then by crossing first, and assisting us.

Our last major obstacle of the day was the river crossing just 1.5 km from the Alder Stream landing site. We hit it around 1700 in the waning light of the day. It was a nice gentle current, and fun to get across. But we were eager to deflate the rafts, and head down the beach to find a good camp site. That last part of the hike was quite nice, a real, wide, sandy beach, easy walking with our heavy packs, in the evening sun. We got to the edge of the woods by 1800 and found a nice camp site, had a good dinner in dry weather, and were able to hang out together without worrying about having to stay dry. Carl always had a lightweight portable shelter he'd set up, where we would store our food, well away from camp, and eat our meals in. Then after we ate, we'd join Hig and Erin in their heated tent, to warm up/dry out, and hang out.

It began raining though, after we got in our tents for our final night. I didn't mind, knowing we'd be picked up on the beach tomorrow, and then heading back to the comforts we all take for granted. Les, from Alsek Air was scheduled to fly in at 0930 Saturday morning, at low tide, to pick us up. So we were all up by 0730 and packed by 0900 and on the beach. It was raining, though the visibility was still at least 8-10 km, and the wind 20-40 kph, so we knew Les would make it. Sure enough, exactly at 0930 he buzzed by us, landed, and taxied right up to our feet! Great flying, and great service. It was raining harder as we packed up and got into the plane. Unfortunately, Carl had to stay behind, to be picked up the next day. Les's scheduling was too tight for him to take Carl to Icy Bay. During the short 30 min. flight back to Yakutat, the rain became much heavier, and it was obviously much windier. We got out just in time.

All in all, I had an amazing and interesting time on this trip. Getting to know Hig and Erin better, learning from them about all the different kinds of treks they do, and also talking about the changes we were seeing there, around the Malaspina Glacier. It was also a great pleasure spending time with Carl, and benefitting from his vast wilderness experience, as well as with Sam, who was very eager to learn all about Alaska, in this, his first trip to the state. When Hig and Erin return from their trip next week, and then begin writing it up on their web-site, and putting on videos, I encourage you to check them out, they will be very interesting, and enlightening. For now, they have done a few blog posts, which they've had to give to their visitors, to take out with them.

http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/blog/

I'd love to return to this area some day, during a gentler time, with longer days, such as in May or June (April/May/June are the driest months there), and explore more, and see the continuing rapid changes there. And bring Mattie, and our new A.P.R. intern, Kluane. Perhaps you'd like to join us?

AVENIDA REVOLUCION [y] EL PROYECTO MALASPINA

No, were not talking about the Avenida Revolucion, in Tijuana, B.C., Mexico, the world-famous introduction to Mexico visitors receive when they cross over the World's busiest border crossing from San Diego, CA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenida_Revoluci%C3%B3n

An avenue that as a child, opened my eyes up to the shocking poverty and hopelessness of life in the "Third World". The state of Baja California Norte, and the city of Tijuana have taken great pains over the last 25 years or so to "clean up" and improve the image of the central core area of the city, yet you still only have to walk a few blocks off Revolucion or the other main drag, Avenida Constitucion, to understand what the "Third World" really means.

But the Avenida Revolucion we're talking about now is Wall Street. Because there is a revolution now occurring, and spreading across the World, from and because of it.

And which is very inspiring, and if it continues to grow and spread, will bring about meaningful changes toward building a more sane and just society in this and other countries. This is a revolution in spirit, and non-violent direct action, inspired by those which started in Tunisia and Egypt, not a violent overthrow of an existing regime, as say occurred in Russia in 1917, or France, in 1789. Though if the "corporatocracy" which continues, so far, in it's unabated sociopathic path of greed, and destruction of lives, hope, and the environment, across the World, is not checked, it will eventually be. Fortunately, "practising idealists", thousands and thousands of them (and hopefully soon, millions!), who realise in the core of their beings, that "ends do not justify means", are working cooperatively to bring to light and change the destructive, unjust aspects of our current predatory Capitalistic socio-political and economic system.

Corporate media sources have been criticising the movement as being filled with lazy, shiftless, unemployable "hippie" types, just coming together to party. And wondering why there have been no demands stated. Yet there are, this is a declaration issued by the main "Occupy Wall Street" working group. https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/ The #OWS movement started over the past year, as a loose coalition of different working groups, with no central authority and leadership, and continues to evolve that way, now with increasing support from organised labour, and a few politicians. Though great care is being taken not to allow the movement to be subverted or strangled by partisan politicians, because they know that by doing so, it's great power will be lost. None of the great changes in U.S. society since the country's inception, the end of slavery, woman's suffrage, labour reforms, civil rights, etc.., came about through the ballot box, but from direct action and civil disobedience, often at great sacrifice, and so it must be again.

Once again, one of our favourite authors, Chris Hedges, who lives in New York City, and is a part of the movement, wrote an inspiring piece about the movement, which we'd like to share part of:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/17

                      A Movement Too Big to Fail
by Chris Hedges

"There is no danger that the protesters who have occupied squares, parks and plazas across the nation in defiance of the corporate state will be co-opted by the Democratic Party or groups like MoveOn. The faux liberal reformers, whose abject failure to stand up for the rights of the poor and the working class, have signed on to this movement because they fear becoming irrelevant. Union leaders, who pull down salaries five times that of the rank and file as they bargain away rights and benefits, know the foundations are shaking. So do Democratic politicians from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi. So do the array of “liberal” groups and institutions, including the press, that have worked to funnel discontented voters back into the swamp of electoral politics and mocked those who called for profound structural reform.

Resistance, real resistance, to the corporate state was displayed when a couple of thousand protesters, clutching mops and brooms, early Friday morning forced the owners of Zuccotti Park and the New York City police to back down from a proposed attempt to expel them in order to “clean” the premises. These protesters in that one glorious moment did what the traditional “liberal” establishment has steadily refused to do—fight back. And it was deeply moving to watch the corporate rats scamper back to their holes on Wall Street. It lent a whole new meaning to the phrase “too big to fail.”

photo: Daniel OliverioTinkering with the corporate state will not work. We will either be plunged into neo-feudalism and environmental catastrophe or we will wrest power from corporate hands. This radical message, one that demands a reversal of the corporate coup, is one the power elite, including the liberal class, is desperately trying to thwart. But the liberal class has no credibility left. It collaborated with corporate lobbyists to neglect the rights of tens of millions of Americans, as well as the innocents in our imperial wars. The best that liberals can do is sheepishly pretend this is what they wanted all along. Groups such as MoveOn and organized labor will find themselves without a constituency unless they at least pay lip service to the protests. The Teamsters’ arrival Friday morning to help defend the park signaled an infusion of this new radicalism into moribund unions rather than a co-opting of the protest movement by the traditional liberal establishment. The union bosses, in short, had no choice.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, like all radical movements, has obliterated the narrow political parameters. It proposes something new. It will not make concessions with corrupt systems of corporate power. It holds fast to moral imperatives regardless of the cost. It confronts authority out of a sense of responsibility. It is not interested in formal positions of power. It is not seeking office. It is not trying to get people to vote. It has no resources. It can’t carry suitcases of money to congressional offices or run millions of dollars of advertisements. All it can do is ask us to use our bodies and voices, often at personal risk, to fight back. It has no other way of defying the corporate state. This rebellion creates a real community instead of a managed or virtual one. It affirms our dignity. It permits us to become free and independent human beings.
Martin Luther King was repeatedly betrayed by liberal supporters, especially when he began to challenge economic forms of discrimination, which demanded that liberals, rather than simply white Southern racists, begin to make sacrifices. King too was a radical. He would not compromise on nonviolence, racism or justice. He understood that movements—such as the Liberty Party, which fought slavery, the suffragists, who fought for women’s rights, the labor movement and the civil rights movement—have always been the true correctives in American democracy. None of those movements achieved formal political power. But by holding fast to moral imperatives they made the powerful fear them. King knew that racial equality was impossible without economic justice and an end to militarism. And he had no intention of ceding to the demands of the liberal establishment that called on him to be calm and patience. “For years, I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions in the South, a little change here, a little change there,” King said shortly before he was assassinated. “Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire system, a revolution of values.”

King was killed in 1968 when he was in Memphis to support a strike by sanitation workers. By then he had begun to say that his dream, the one that the corporate state has frozen into a few safe clichés from his 1963 speech in Washington, had turned into a nightmare. King called at the end of his life for massive federal funds to rebuild inner cities, what he called “a radical redistribution of economic and political power,” a complete restructuring of “the architecture of American society.” He grasped that the inequities of capitalism had become the instrument by which the poor would always remain poor. “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism,” King said, “but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God’s children.” On the eve of King’s murder he was preparing to organize a poor people’s march on Washington, D.C., designed to cause “major, massive dislocations,” a nonviolent demand by the poor, including the white underclass, for a system of economic equality. It would be 43 years before his vision was realized by an eclectic group of protesters who gathered before the gates of Wall Street.

The truth of America is understood only when you listen to voices in our impoverished rural enclaves, prisons and the urban slums, when you hear the words of our unemployed, those who have lost their homes or cannot pay their medical bills, our elderly and our children, especially the quarter of the nation’s children who depend on food stamps to eat, and all who are marginalized. There is more reality expressed about the American experience by the debt-burdened young men and women protesting in the parks than by all the chatter of the well-paid pundits and experts that pollutes the airwaves.

What kind of nation is it that spends far more to kill enemy combatants and Afghan and Iraqi civilians than it does to help its own citizens who live below the poverty line? What kind of nation is it that permits corporations to hold sick children hostage while their parents frantically bankrupt themselves to save their sons and daughters? What kind of nation is it that tosses its mentally ill onto urban heating grates? What kind of nation is it that abandons its unemployed while it loots its treasury on behalf of speculators? What kind of nation is it that ignores due process to torture and assassinate its own citizens? What kind of nation is it that refuses to halt the destruction of the ecosystem by the fossil fuel industry, dooming our children and our children’s children?

“America,” Langston Hughes wrote, “never was America to me.”

“The black vote mean [nothing],” the rapper Nas intones. “Who you gunna elect/ Satan or Satan? In the hood nothing is changing,/ We aint got no choices.”

Or listen to hip-hop artist Talib Kweli: “Back in the ’60s, there was a big push for black … politicians, and now we have more than we ever had before, but our communities are so much worse. A lot of people died for us to vote, I’m aware of that history, but these politicians are not in touch with people at all. Politics is not the truth to me, it’s an illusion.”...

The liberal class functions in a traditional, capitalist democracy as a safety valve. It lets off enough steam to keep the system intact. It makes piecemeal and incremental reform possible. This is what happened during the Great Depression and the New Deal. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s greatest achievement was that he saved capitalism. Liberals in a functioning capitalist democracy are at the same time tasked with discrediting radicals, whether it is King, especially after he denounced the war in Vietnam, or later Noam Chomsky or Ralph Nader.

...The stupidity of the corporate state is that it thought it could dispense with the liberal class. It thought it could shut off that safety valve in order to loot and pillage with no impediments. Corporate power forgot that the liberal class, when it functions, gives legitimacy to the power elite. And the reduction of the liberal class to silly courtiers, who have nothing to offer but empty rhetoric, meant that the growing discontent found other mechanisms and outlets. Liberals were reduced to stick figures, part of an elaborate pantomime, as they acted in preordained roles to give legitimacy to meaningless and useless political theater. But that game is over."

Here in Anchorage, we have our own "Occupy" movement. The last two Saturday's have seen a few hundred people marching and carrying signs representing the movement around the central part of downtown, near our swank Performing Arts Centre and Museum. This past Saturday Mattie and I were able to attend and get a feel for the strength of it, and meet a few people. We arrived around 1500 in the afternoon.

The park square where the movement gathers is bounded by the two busiests streets coming in and out of Downtown Anchorage, 5th and 6th, which form the Glenn Highway, the only route north out of the city. There were people on both streets holding signs, above, and we were very heartened to hear and see nothing but support from the passing cars, honks and waves. Not a single disparaging comment. And, there were no police in evidence, either! It was a cool, drizzly day, about 4C (39F), but at least, not raining hard.

In the square between the two streets, about 150-200 people were gathered round, and some tents were set up, providing food, a library, and information about the "occupation". The plans are not to continuously occupy the square, as in NYC and other cities, but to keep returning on evenings and weekends. http://www.facebook.com/OccupyAnchorage

Non-violent civil disobedience training was offered shortly after we arrived, and we took part, as the basics were explained, which we were familiar with.

This lasted about a half-hour, then that was it for the organised events for the day. A planning meeting was set up for later in the week, for other events to follow.

We thought this young man's sign was interesting, and we checked out these links. They are worth looking into, check them out, see what you think. www.opensourceeocology.org   www.verticalfarm.com    www.windowfarms.org   That's one neat thing about when idealistic, progressive people come together, we all can learn quite a bit from each other.

We were very encouraged by the support of the passing people, both on the street, and in their cars, for the movement, and by the lack of police presence. And we look forward to reporting on Occupy Anchorage's activities, as they develop. Our climate, obviously, isn't very encouraging of outdoor protests and civil disobedience type activities, at least for half the year, all the more reason to support them in their efforts, and join in when we can. Please join us. Viva La Revolucion!

                              EL PROYECTO MALASPINA

Your lead editor will not be able to attend any of the Occupy Anchorage activities the next few Saturday's, due to our long-planned trip to the Malaspina Glacier, the largest tidewater glacier in Alaska, on the Gulf of Alaska coast near Yakutat.

Our friends at Ground Truth Trekking, http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/About/, Hig and Erin, and their two small children, Lituya (9 months old), and Katmai (three years), are engaging in a remarkable journey, which started last 15 September, and which will end on 15 November. During which they are hiking/pack-rafting the edge of the Malaspina glacier from northwest to southeast, in about a 110 KM traverse, utilising a few pre-set caches of food and supplies. To document changes in this amazing glacial system of the last several decades, re-occupying sites, which in some cases, haven't been visited in 100 years.

http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Journeys/LifeOnIce.html

Global warming is causing most of the glaciers in Alaska to rapidly recede, especially the lower-elevation source-region ones.

http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Issues/ClimateChange/GlacierRetreatInAlaska.html

The Malaspina, though it's source region is in the highest elevations of the St. Elias mountains, is still receding, and in very interesting ways, which we'll be discussing when we return. And since global warming will be accelerating in the coming decades, the changes we'll show you, will be as well.

I am fortunate enough to be able to join them, for just 8 days, beginning this friday, with a couple other of their friends. We'll all be surveying the southern part of the glacier, taking photos and video. We won't be moving camp every day, probably just once or twice in the 8 days I'll be there, but doing day trips up onto the ice and around the edges and along the coast. Here are some scenes from their passage through the area in 2007:

http://groundtruthtrekking.org/PhotoGroups/Malaspina/.

Our intrepid assistant editor Mattie will have to remain here at the Chugach Front Research Centre unfortunately, but she will be in good hands and ready for action, when I return.

Needless to say, this is during the peak of the Gulf of Alaska fall storm season, which can offer up storms at any time with 80-160 kph winds (50-100 mph), along with heavy rain/snow. There haven't been any this strong yet, during Hig and Erin's time there, and hopefully the worst we'll see are ones half that strength. Between 1-2 day storms though, there are usually at least 1-2 nice days, where beautiful views of the wild coast, glacier, and St. Elias mountains come out. And which will enable us to work more, and move camp, when needed. This will be a good test of my best outdoor gear. Because we are right on the coast, temperatures will be fairly mild, -10C to +10C (18F to 50F), so the main issue will just be keeping dry in our tent, and outside, while we are working.

So forgive us for dropping out of contact for a few weeks. We'll be back on the 29th, and will share with you as quickly as possible, what transpired there, and our findings, in this amazing place. Cheers.