High Altitude Footage

Dr. Jeff Bury (UC Santa Cruz) shot some footage on our high altitude trip...

Back at Byrd Polar

Made it home last night! (After catching the rojo ojo to Newark and a 6 hour layover I am safely home with my sample cooler untouched by customs!)

I'm back to work already, starting in on those dissertation edits stacked up on my desk and noticing the postdoctoral soil samples drying on the clean bench. (Thanks Jaika, Kathy and Berry for going out with the backhoe while I was away!)

Anyway, here are some of my favorite pics including me and Kyung-in at Yungay, dos Sara(h)s with Jeff M. Bryan and me in Quilcayhuanca, and Jeff B., Adam F., and me after our hike above 5000m!
(most of these are from Bryan's camera).

Familiarity

We (Jeff M., Jeff B., Sara K., and Michel B.) left Huaraz yesterday on the same 8 hour coach we arrived on... Lima feels more familiar with the constant street noise and neon lights and lack of poultry running around the street. (Pictured are some scenes from Huaraz). Bryan met us at the bus station and we all went to have pollo and papas one last time together. Bryan was on TV yesterday while we numbed ourselves on the bus. He discussed glacial retreat and was questioned about his 'friend' Al Gore. This experience included makeup, but all and all it sounds like it was a big success!

Sara and I are heading out to explore Lima before we catch the red eye. We were given the name of a cafe in Mireflores (the rather ritzy part of Lima) to start with. We will meet Jeffs, Bryan and some of the Peruvian Glaciology Group for lunch later... and best of all, I will be home with my wonderful husband, Trey, toasting us with the clean water straight from our tap in less than 24 hours.

Clean water for Todos

Today I took my final samples at the Rio Santa in central Huaraz. There are at least a million users of the Rio Santa... with 200,000 of them in the upper basin, which includes Huaraz. This river flows from the Andes down to the Lima coast and is used for bathing, laundry, and agriculture. Our group is sampling the upper reaches of this river and characterizing glacial and groundwater contributions as well as surveying people about their water use and needs. (Specifically, I am researching the metal chemistry of the river including both natural and mine runoff.)
Pictured is something red discharging into the main channel, women doing laundry at a river water station, clothes drying on the bank opposite of my final samples, a kid looking for metal to recycle on the bank, two children and a dog near the river, and my pH and conductivity meters, resting near a bag of toilet paper and a dead pig. I did not see the bloated flush until I started sampling and nearly fell into the water in surprise. Sarah Wright watched me from the bank as I wobbled precariously and clutched my stomach in horror.

The kids made me especially sad. Not knowing what to do, I smiled as earnestly as I could and handed the oldest boy the only candy bar in my bag. He took one small bite and gave the rest to his wide-eyed younger brother. While I sampled, women on the opposite bank stripped down to their underlayers. They vigorously lathered themselves in the same water that flowed through heaps of human and animal waste. I am testing the quality of this water. But this is not enough.

I still haven't eaten a guinea pig

Yesterday we got special permission to head to Pasto Ruri, a National Park that has been shut down for a variety of political reasons. There, you used to be able to ski down the glaciers, but now, there is little to shoosh down.

Anyway, I am very tired and my nose is nearly touching the keypad. In the last 5 days I have hiked over 8 hours a day on average and I am eating everything in site. (Altitude has not diminished my appetite. We have yet to venture into restaurants serving guinea pigs yet, so I am still limited in my culinary adventures). Pictured is Sarah Wright, who will stay after most of us leave to conduct a tourism study for her Master's Thesis. She helped me sample yesterday and is very upbeat even under strenuous conditions. Also pictured are Adam, Paul, Allyson, and Kyung who are the Lidar/GIS/GPS/Survey team on this mission. (Behind them is the shrinking Pasto Ruri). The last pictures are from today, Jeff, Sara Knox and I woke up at 5 and headed back to Llanganuco to sample tributaries from two headwater lakes.

I'll write more tomorrow about what we're doing... after I hydrate and eat a few plates of food.

Indecent Exposure

I'm working on rehydrating after a few full days of hiking, climbing, and sampling in Quilcayhuanca. We're inside the California Cafe having second breakfast. The main entrance mostly blocked by a metal garage door to prevent stray rocks from pummeling us. (Most strikers are not violent, but some are, and they throw things). Sarah Wright (see Peace and Skittles Link) had to duck (or rather, was pushed to the floor by the guy she was interviewing at the Statistics
Office yesterday). Many businesses are still open, but in a covert steel covered sense. The fresh "communista" graffiti and eerily quiet streets. (It is usually bustling at all hours).

Here's a picture of me on our hike down from Yanamarey Glacier- my zipper broke and the duck tape solution finally blew out. It is pretty indecent for Peru, so I put on my pair of Granny pile pants by the time we caught our cab out.

Uhhh- the steel door was just pulled all of the way down because a flock of strikers are walking by. My latte sure is good....

Quilcayhuanca!!!

yikes! In a tired worry, I attempted to save some of my pics to an external hard drive and deleted about 100 of my faves..lost somewhere between the hard drive and the altitude. (unfortunately many of these were of people. Staggering mountain views are great, but the crew here is amazing!). Here a few that I didn't delete from the Quilcayhuanca Valley. The first is me (with a polvo beard) at more than 5000 m. Jeff Bury, Adam French and I woke up at 4 am to get that high and made it back to camp at dusk... I also managed to get a headwater sample!) The last picture of Bryan Mark is one of a handful of people pics that survived my tired erasing.

Bag full of kittens

Overwhelming Beauty

We sampled the Llanganuco chain of lakes. Jeff, Sara, Jesus and Adam also mastered the art of weather station maintenance and upgrading. The views in Huascaran National park were overwhelming. As the polvo (dust) fell from our faces, the mountains towered from all sides. Surrounding us included Pisco and Huascaran (the same mountain cull Lonnie Thompson and crew drilled for 64 days).

Pictured are one of our sampling sites, Jesus and Adam successfully replacing the memory on one of the weather stations (after a two hour gazelle run up landslide debris), Huascaran, and two views of and from the met station.

Also a new crew from Nova Scotia arrived that are helping Bryan with Lidar flights above the Cordillera Blanca. It looks like the flights on hold may soon take off, which we all hope for.

Yanamarey Glacier & Pampas

We reached 4800 meters! Jeff McKenzie, Sara Knox, Jeff Bury, and Adam French and I hiked in two groups up to the hut near the terminus of the Yanamarey Glacier. Jeff M., Sara, and I sampled water in the pampa lowlands on the way up. These mushy grasslands are great sponges. The pampas filter and store much of the highly mineralized water that courses directly in front of the glacier. They likely serve the same role as wetlands do at higher latitudes.

As Jeff M., Sara, and I sampled, Jeff B. and Adam loaded our extra gear onto two hired horses. The local man who lead these horses was one of the worst they had ever hired in their multiple trips up this valley. (Starting with not having rope to tie our gear to the horses).

Just before dusk we reached the tin and stone hut at the base of the Yanamarey. In spite of my past 3 days of less than perfect health, I felt well enough to be on dinner and tea crew and Adam and I made a big pot of potato stew. Soon after eating we all slept in a tight row and I made sure to avoid flailing my arms and legs around to stretch them out.

I am glad that I felt well at night, because the morning was more difficult and required some mental readiness and a few Advil. The altitude was slower paced and breathier than lower elevations. I'm sure that my sample bottles from these heights have wiggly writing born from my new strange body. But the views were worth every bit of this surreal experience.

A day for no pictures

Today is my second rest day, and I'm now taking Ciprofloxacin a strong antibotic that after two doses seems to be doing the trick. I feel well enough to work, yet, I stayed behind. We are heading to higher altitude tomorrow at the Yanamarey Glacier for an overnight and I think taking care of myself is the best preparation. The others are out installing water monitoring equipment and talking to nearby communities.

I am thinking of the stinging frothy red water we sampled from a llaves pile (mine tailings) before it entered the river. Most devastating, the barren dust-field stretched out in front of it was marked by children's footprints. A flock of uniformed kids dutifully bounced to school across this parched poisonous land. The source of a pervasive local cough is likely the pumping of this flour into the air. This day was a mix of emotions with the kids burned into my head sharply contrasting with images from the Andean headwaters we sampled earlier. Before the alpine glare of the afternoon, golden grasses spanned out across the broad flat valley towered by glistening rise of the ice covered Cordillera Blanca. I am humbled by both grandeur and devastation.

Rio Santa Valley Pictures