Ah, back to internet connectivity. We’ve had a stretch of excellent weather and have been in the field or travelling every day. After leaving the Shunda fire base, Stuart and I spent 4 days in the foothills near High River repeating some illusive images from A.O. Wheeler’s 1899 Irrigation Survey. Over the past winter Rob Watt managed to locate a number of these photo stations by reading through Wheeler’s diaries and triangulating stations from his notes. Even better, Rob was able to join us in the field for several days to lead us to some stations and share some stories. Based on Rob’s work we were able to repeat several stations that MLP crews have struggled to find over the years. We now have photos for Marguerite Lake (aka McCaskill Lake) and Silver Lake (formerly thought to be Nanton Lake).
Taking azimuths near Silver Lake (photo from Stuart)
After bouncing around between couches and campsites in the foothills (thanks everyone!) we travelled up to Glacier National Park and have been staying in Rogers Pass for the last four nights. Here we caught up with Eric Higgs, project director extraordinaire (who is currently looking over my shoulder and who is of no relation to Stuart Higgs, self-declared “field lackey extraordinaire,” who is also looking over my shoulder). We also met up with Jocelyn Hirose, a glaciologist who will be using some of MLP’s repeat photos for an upcoming project with the park (stay tuned). We’ve benefited from another stretch of great weather, and have been able to repeat some very scenic survey images from Wheeler’s 1901 work.
From Abbott Ridge looking at Mt Sir Donald and Illecillewaet Glacier
Check out Mt Sir Donald on the left there: That pointy peak is one for the MLP history books, as Stuart and Jocelyn and their exceptional pilot Jaime made the second ever flight to its peak on Wednesday, complete with some reporters watching. But that’s one for Stuart to tell, so I’ll leave it to him for an upcoming blog post. (Stuart, post something about Sir Donald, okay?)
Yesterday we wrapped up work in Glacier N.P. with some lower elevation images. The Hasselblad, our big fancy camera, was acting up, but Stuart and Eric put their heads together to solve the problem. I’ve threatened to post the picture, so had better follow through:
(Aww!)