Cassia sent me this link today. What an awesome videographer she is. That also means I can take the day off. Skull Rapids will have to wait for a day.
Enjoy!
Cleopatra and the Rocks – Intermezzo
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Category Archives: generally cool stuff
ENVS seniors celebrate Earth Day with honors presentations
Dan, Justin and Prof. Gourley in the White Mountains
This afternoon the second batch of senior presentations started off with Bridget, who reported on the Bridges of Hartford and how they affect heavy metal concentrations in the Park River watershed. Bridget was supposed to present last week, but was too busy beating The College of New Jersey in Lacrosse (15-8).
Greg was next, updating us on invasive species work at Knox Preserve in Southington, CT. He investigated the effects of various treatments (mowing, spraying with herbicides) on plant populations, ecosystem diversity and invasive species abundances. His research is part of a longer research effort by Prof. Douglass on invasive species management.
Greg presenting his research
Lia told us about her analysis of soil temperature data that had been collected since 2007. She had some bad news for us: soil temperatures had increased by an average of 0.25C per year, and two of the thermocouples need replacing. Jon and I will get right on it once the semester is over.
On we moved to the White Mountains: Justin presented baseline data for aluminum and calcium concentrations in forest soils prior to clear cutting. Dan analyzed the same sites for mercury and organic matter concentrations. Their work is the beginning of a long-term study on the effects of clear cutting on forest soils in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Justin explaining some finer points of his statistical analyses.
Brooke finished the afternoon on a high-note presenting her mineral analyses of lake sediments from Otsego Lake, NY. Brooke used X-Ray Diffraction to quantify the abundance of terrigenous materials in lake sedimenst and reconstruct storm events. Her analyses confirmed the influence of eralier storms and revealed a period of low lake levels between 2000 – 6000 years B.P.
Brooke’s lake-level model.
Moving Hartford forward on two wheels …
Cameron Douglass and Alex Perez (’17) led a community roundtable discussion Monday evening at Hartford City Hall, during which Alex presented GIS analyses and community survey results he’s been working on for several semesters. For more information head on over to the Trinitycology blog.
While you were hanging out in Acapulco …
… Professor Christoph Geiss went to scenic Iowa – western Iowa to be precise. Christoph spent a long weekend at Hitchcock Nature Center in Honey Creek, Iowa.
Now, that’s a sky worth traveling for.
While many of you got roasted on the beach, Christoph took his field training to study wildfires and become a wildland firefighter. The training started out pretty benign. The class learned about equipment (expensive!), life on the fireline and in fire camp (dirty – no showers for a week), and how to use the various hand tools. The highlight of the morning was a fire shelter exercise: Christoph and his fellow firefighter rookies had exactly 30 seconds to unpack a fire shelter, climb into it and drop to the ground (feet to the assumed fire). The exercise was fun, the re-folding of the practice shelters less so. They seemed to get bigger after every drill.
Yep, that’s the class under practice fire shelters. The real thing is made of some space-age fiberglass-aluminum composite, weighs a ton and costs even more. We were only allowed to play with the practice version. The guy in the flannel shirt shakes every shelter to simulate the fierce winds to be expected during a fire storm.
The afternoon was spent on fire fighting tactics and safety (Always keep an eye out for your safety zone and establish a solid anchor point!). The class also got to spray some water as they learned about the ins- and outs of fire engines, hose lays and various nozzles.
This thing beats any Super-Soaker! It empties a 400 gal water tank in less than 10 minutes.
All lined up to fight some fires.
The highlight of the afternoon came after a short hike (in formation, spaced 10 ft apart, tool held on the side at the balance point on the (non-existing) downhill side – no swinging, hacking or stabbing allowed) to a nearby tallgrass prairie. The big bluestem burned quite nicely and provided just enough excitement.
Chad Graeve, the instructor points out the finer points of a grass fire.
The group practiced on several small fires. It took the instructors maybe a minute to extinguish theirs, the class was, well, not quite as practiced, but after a few (very) hot hours everybody had three little grass fires under their belts, and knew how to “enter the fire from the heel”, work “from the black”, and learned that a simple backpack pump can do wonders, but that even 4-ft flames put out quite a bit of heat.
A rookie crew at work.
The final fire of the day.
Christoph also used the opportunity to sample some recently burned soils, go on a few hikes and watched the pro’s extinguish a “real” grass fire, where he learned that the mighty backpack pump may well be an effective fire-fighting tool, but that even a measly “Type 6” fire engine puts out so much more water…
One of Christoph’s sampling sites.
Lia Howard (’15) shows off her research at AGU
Lia Howard presenting her poster at the annual AGU meeting in San Francisco
In a packed poster session where Jon had to stay clear to make room for all the interested visitors, Lia Howard presented her on-going senior honors thesis work to the masses of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California. Her poster entitled, “Analysis of hourly temperature ground data on the Trinity College Campus, Hartford, Connecticut USA” was part of the “Global Environmental Change” theme session that focused on quantifying temperature change distributions. Lia showed how the temperature probes, which are located in a well between the soccer and football fields, measured an increase over a seven year span of approximately 0.25⁰C/year. Lia received some excellent feedback on her work and will be exploring some suggested statistical tools that could be used to the over 300,000 temperature recordings from the well.
ENVS kicks off the semester with a pre-orientation program
At Riverside Park
For the first time the ENVS program offered a pre-orientation program centered around the water quality in Hartford’s public parks. However, students will not only explore Hartford’s rivers, they will also get an opportunity to sample some of Hartford’s restaurants. As it turns out, our program was the only one that did NOT treat their participants to delicious Mather food, but took them to Riverside Park for a nice little barbecue. Joan forgot the veggie burgers, but luckily she was the only vegetarian of the group, and we fed her plenty of watermelon and potato chips.
Members of the Class of 2018
Some of the younger members of the Class of 2018
Tomorrow the students will explore several of Hartford’s parks, hike up to Heublein Tower for lunch, and take the first water quality measurements.
Gray is the New Black: Epilogue 4 – back to Höfn and on to Mosfellsbær
Waiting for our super jeep – Illikambur
Lutz decides to hitch a ride with us back to Höfn this morning, so we hike back up the steep trail to Illikambur and wait for the super jeep. This time we’re picked up Gulli, who drives a Nissan Pathfinder with gigantic tires. Sissi, our driver on the way in, had a Landrover with pretty big tires, but this monster is actually hard to get into.
View south from Illikambur
Into the river we go!
… and (hopefully) out the other side.
Big tires make for faster cars :-) and we cruise back to Höfn, where we set up camp in out old spot, in no time. Not much has been happening since we left. Höfn celebrated its annual Lobsterfest, so the campground had quite a few locals with their campers, the town was decked out in orange balloons, and a few drunk people were sobering up on the lawn next to our tent. That was pretty much it.
Not much change in the harbor of Höfn.
We have lunch at Kaffihornið (free Wifi and excellent dinner options as well), visit the local pool, where we hang out mostly in the hot pots, and enjoy a lobster roll down by the harbor. Icelandic lobster is OK, but I have to say: Maine lobster is way, way better.
Hafnarbúðin – home of our lobster dinner.
Vatnajökull late at night
We have a second dinner with Lutz before heading out for one last stroll through town. The clouds cleared a bit and the light over the glacier was most impressive. The next day we take a taxi to the airport and descend back into the clouds of Reykjavik. With no specific plan we drove out to Hveragerði, but saw Egill, Alex and Sieglinde’s truck parked by the side of the road. They were sitting in a local dive enjoying meat soup, and since it was raining we wasted no time and joined them for a big bowl and unlimited coffee.
Egill parked in front of Littla Kaffistofan – home of excellent meat soup.
After a few hours we head out to Hveragerði, but bad weather and a lousy campground make us return to Reykjavik and on to Mosfellsbær. Here the campground is not much better, but we’ve already set up camp, so we decided to stay. Luckily, the nearby Hotel Laxness has a bar and we spend most of the day watching the World Cup.
Lupines started this bolg, so lupines shall end it…
… sunset in Mosfellsbær .
The trip to Ljónsoræfi was a success despite the rain. Trails are steep at the south end, but if one starts in the north and ends near Höfn it should be more than doable. The hike leads through plenty of Arctic terrain and has great views of the glaciers. Our three days felt a lot like the Laugavegur 30 years ago, so we might have a change in venue when we return back to Iceland three years from now.
Gray is the New Black: Epilogue 3 – Víðibrekkusker
For the first time in two weeks the weather is really nice. Not just a hint of blue somewhere near the horizon, but real sunshine for most of the day. We are celebrating by climbing Víðibrekkusker, the mountain on the other side of the river.
Waterfall on Kollumúli
Icelandic killer sheep ambush.
An impressive dike along the way.
As expected, the path starts out pretty steep, but zig-zags around the mountain and we gain elevation pretty quickly without too much effort. The views are stunning, and we enjoy the nice weather. Lunch on top of the mountain turns out to be an almost unpleasant, warm affair. It’s a good day to work on our tan.
About halfway up Víðibrekkusker
The peak consisted of rather sharp gravel.
On the way down we ran into a herd of reindeer who eyed us suspiciously before disappearing over the next ridge.
Reindeer ambush.
Jon high above the Múlaskáli hut. ..
… and crossing the Öxarfellsá on the wobble hanging bridge.
The evening turned out sunny and warm. Múlaskáli gets its water through a long black pipe from high up in the valley, and the sunshine warmed up the cold water in the pipe. We all enjoyed a free warm shower. Nigel told us about the Egiilssel hut, which is very nice, while Lutz spent the day hiking up the Tröllakrókar. We all had dinner on the deck.
Sheep trails on Kollumúli
We enjoyed the sunshine while it lasted. Later that evening clouds came rolling in from the South, making for good photographs, but promising another gray day for tomorrow.
Evening clouds.
Gray is the New Black: Epilogue 2 – Tröllakrókar and Egilssel
on our way to the Tröllakrókar
Today’s weather is not bad – not bad at all. The clouds are high, it is not raining and there are a few shreds of blue sky. We head out for a day hike to the Tröllakrókar, a series of impressive hoodoos. While already there we also plan to check out the trail to the Egilssel hut, one of the huts along our planned Ljónsoræfi. So far the hiking was pretty rough. Trails are faint, maps are bad, and the slopes are steep. We’re trying to figure out whether we can do this hike with our students in three years when we intend to return to Iceland.
the famous Tröllakrókar, gigantic hoodoos that formed in volcanic tuff
Now, let’s see, what’s for lunch? Dried fish, bítafiskur, more dried fish, ahhh, here we go: chocolate!
The ascent is steep, we fist follow the river along a sheep trail before we ascent the scree slopes. With day packs it is not too bad, with students we’d go the other way, so even with big packs it should not be too much of a problem. Around noon we arrive at the Tröllakrókar. Christoph takes pictures, while Jon has lunch.
Nigel, who proved to be quite a character, decided to do an overnight hike to the Egilssel hut. We meet him at the Tröllakrókar and, since he is noot the best navigator in the world, we accompany him across the ridge until the hut is in sight. The mountain tops are still covered in snow and Christoph’s boots get soaked once again.
Nigel and Jon at the Tröllakrókar
On our way to Egilssel
Frozen lakes and …
… patterned ground on our way to Egilssel. We are definitely in the Arctic!
Soon we cross a big snow field from where the path to the hut is obvious. We bif Nigel goodbye and return to our hut at Múlaskáli.
More frozen lakes (in June) and the hut at Egilssel.
The evening brings a few new guests to the hut. First we watch a lonely hiker descend the trail from Illikambur. He is slow, and Jon predicts he is a German photographer – no idea where he comes up with that. Well, Lutz is German, but he’s just slow, after spending the last two days hiking in from the ring road.
The first batch of 200 sheep and 580 lambs.
The sheep are old hands and have no problem crossing the bridge.
Next come a bunch of sheep and their shepherds. The sheep get trucked and make their way down the steep trail from Illikambur. We get to talk to the shepherds, who encourage us to use the hut – for free, Iceland is expensive enough …
They also consider an empty flag pole a wasted flag pole, and since they didn’t bring an Icelandic flag …
No empty flag pole no more …
Gray is the New Black: Epilogue 1 – to Múlaskáli
downtown Höfn during rush hour
Things are definitely happening in Höfn. Its claim to fame is that it’s one of the few (only?) good natural harbors on the southern coast of Iceland. It has a town hall, a public pool, a small fleet of fishing boats and a few bars. After an hour of strolling through the town we’ve seen it all and start recognizing the locals.
Höfn harbor
We continue our quest for the best hot dog in Iceland and so far the local Olís station is the clear winner. We have three dogs each and wash it down with some fine 3.5% Tuborg.
The next day at 9AM we meet Sissi our superjeep driver from Fjallastakkur, who takes us to the trail head at Illikambur. It was definitely worth the money! We cross an impressive river, which would have been a major pain to cross on foot. Lauren would have had a blast!
View from Illikambur back towards the coast.
The trail down to the Múlaskáli hut.
Taking advantage of a warden-less hut.
After an hour we arrive at a small parking lot at the edge of a deep gorge. From there it is a short 30-minute walk to the hut at Múlaskáli. We share the hut and campsite with Nigel, a 50-something year old hiker from Hull in England. Since there is no warden or caretaker at the hut we set up our tent between some birch trees. The hut has a beautiful, flag-less flag pole and for the first time our Trinity flag flies high and proud for a photo op before we move it closer to our tent.
No need to start an international incident: the flag goes into a birch tree by our tent.
In the afternoon we go on a short hike up a nearby mountain. The weather is not particularly bad, but the clouds are low and the trails start out steep. With only a light daypack it feels like flying up those mountains.
View across the valley.
Jon finds a new chair for his office.
No, we are not lost, but one member of he expedition is taking a long time to take photographs, leaving plenty of time to ponder the map.
We make it almost to the top, but reach the clouds and snow just below the summit. Since the inside of every cloud looks pretty much the same we turn around and return to our camp site.
Öxarfellsjökull, a small glacier coming off the Vatnajökull ice cap.
Waiting for the photographer – again…
Scree slope at the angle of repose.
At camp we explore the hut, which is very nice, cook dinner, plan tomorrow’s hike and go to bed early.
Making good use of the Múlaskáli hut.
back to the regular trip
still not enough? onward to day 2 of our Ljónsoræfi adventure