The river wasn’t very far across, but the water could move really fast and there were a lot of tricky rocks to walk over, which could be a bit scary. One day my team and I couldn’t make it across the river because there had been too much rain the night before, so we had to turn back. Finally, we had to walk up the loose, rocky area in front of the glacier.
Once we got to the site, we took a lunch break. Then, we’d get to work. We took measurements at three different spots on the river. At each site, we collected a water sample, then measured the water quality and discharge. Since the river was made of melted glacier water, it was always freezing! This made the work a lot harder. The first few times I did the measurements by myself it was pretty challening, and I messed up a couple of the measurements. I was very discouraged, but my team was very patient. Eventually I worked out a good system and gained my confidence back.
After we collected all the data and samples we needed, we did our whole two-hour hike in reverse. By then I was always tired and pretty cold. I was also very happy, though, because I love being outside in these extreme environments and I love the work that I do.
Once we got back to the university at the end of the day, we had to prepare our samples so they could be sent to another lab to be analyzed. We are still waiting on the results from this summer, and I’m very excited to see what we can learn about the system from the data.
Over the course of the summer I learned a ton, and I really enjoyed how many tiny details you start to observe in the system. The work was hard, but also very rewarding. I love research!
