After arriving and finally falling asleep in my tent at Toolik lake we work up to a morning filled with anticipation and excitement. Blades swirling, head sets on, we took off for an adventure of a lifetime across the remote tundra in the far North -East of Alaska to what's known as the time warp, a place where you can step back in time 45,000 years ago. After 1 hour across a desolate landscape, we came across a silver mountain rising out of the tundra - a sheer grey ice-cliff rising some 40 metres out of the tundra. It looked like a movie set out of Star Wars, and totally out of context in the rolling hillsides of far north Alaska.
The cliff face was a Thermocast, or frozen ice cliff due to climate change and rising temperatures in the Arctic zone which are accelerating at 3-4 times the global average. We set down our helicopters on the adjacent pebble river bed and checked for bears before getting a thumbs up from the pilot that it was good to GO! Out and wow what a site - I was looking at frozen ice from the last inter-glacier period and from the bottom to the top I was looking at 45,000 years of history. To get to the ice face of the cliff we had to hike around the tundra and then navigate our way across the melting Permaforst which was oozing mud like substance equivalent to quick-sand. I stepped in the wrong place and that was it - my gumboots started to sink and I totally freaked as there was no way to get out - but luckily I was in gumboots so I was pulled across the had to leave my gum boots to sink. The mud acts like a suction cap and pulls everything down with it - lucky to have just changed my shoes from lace-ups to boots for the walk in!!
Finally we arrived at the face of the ice cliff which is called stinky bluffs as it smells like rotting garbage, only difference is - its 45,000 years old. I touched the ice cliff at its bass and looking up at around 30,000 years we saw a set of old animal horns sticking out of the ice-cliff- large, suspended in time, I really felt like I had gone back in a time machine and to top it off we were all alone, not a single sound, except the melting and carving of ice from the face of the cliff, intensifying as the sun progressed across the day. I decided to do a Jurassic Park style sequence and jumped in the helicopter with our lead camera man and took off for the top of the cliff face, we slowly flew out over the top and then did a vertical drop down the side of the cliff face - it was amazing.
So- things are really changing out here in the tundra - the climate system is getting hotter and causing the permafrost to thaw. It in turn is thawing and releasing CO2 and Methane back into the atmosphere accelerating the warming process even more - this is called a feedback process
We ate some 10,000 year old ice - and all seems fine no one aged!!!, it actually tasted far different to the ice in the freezer at home!
Off to Barrow in 2 days - going FAR north...more soon. LC.
The cliff face was a Thermocast, or frozen ice cliff due to climate change and rising temperatures in the Arctic zone which are accelerating at 3-4 times the global average. We set down our helicopters on the adjacent pebble river bed and checked for bears before getting a thumbs up from the pilot that it was good to GO! Out and wow what a site - I was looking at frozen ice from the last inter-glacier period and from the bottom to the top I was looking at 45,000 years of history. To get to the ice face of the cliff we had to hike around the tundra and then navigate our way across the melting Permaforst which was oozing mud like substance equivalent to quick-sand. I stepped in the wrong place and that was it - my gumboots started to sink and I totally freaked as there was no way to get out - but luckily I was in gumboots so I was pulled across the had to leave my gum boots to sink. The mud acts like a suction cap and pulls everything down with it - lucky to have just changed my shoes from lace-ups to boots for the walk in!!
Finally we arrived at the face of the ice cliff which is called stinky bluffs as it smells like rotting garbage, only difference is - its 45,000 years old. I touched the ice cliff at its bass and looking up at around 30,000 years we saw a set of old animal horns sticking out of the ice-cliff- large, suspended in time, I really felt like I had gone back in a time machine and to top it off we were all alone, not a single sound, except the melting and carving of ice from the face of the cliff, intensifying as the sun progressed across the day. I decided to do a Jurassic Park style sequence and jumped in the helicopter with our lead camera man and took off for the top of the cliff face, we slowly flew out over the top and then did a vertical drop down the side of the cliff face - it was amazing.
So- things are really changing out here in the tundra - the climate system is getting hotter and causing the permafrost to thaw. It in turn is thawing and releasing CO2 and Methane back into the atmosphere accelerating the warming process even more - this is called a feedback process
We ate some 10,000 year old ice - and all seems fine no one aged!!!, it actually tasted far different to the ice in the freezer at home!
Off to Barrow in 2 days - going FAR north...more soon. LC.
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