Despite the radio silence the last couple of days our group has been busy conducting field research on the Hintereisferner. We were fortunate to have Professor Rainer from the Univeristy of Innsbruck guide us to the research station on the Hintereisferner and teach us various research methods that they conduct on the galcier. Some of the things that we had the opportunity to do was run weather balloons, drill ablation stake holes, and disassemble a weather station. We ran a total of two weather balloons, who we named Herbert and Hoover, four times over the course of our time there. It was interesting to learn the various things the sensor tracked and funny to see people try to grab the sensor before it hit the ground. We all got an arm workout in when it came to drilling ablation stakes. It was a real team effort to get all three holes drilled.
We did all of this over a two day period usually in the mornings. Our evenings were filled with collecting water, making tea or dinner, and being able to enjoy one another’s company. When it came time to hike back down it only took us 5 hours instead of the 7 to get up. We enjoyed some sweet treats while we waited for our shuttle back to Innsbruck and we all talked about our time spent here since our trip was coming to a close. On the shuttle ride back we were all exhausted and promptly fell asleep. Later at our last group dinner we all chatted about our favorite memories from the trip and assigned everyone a field name. Today many of us hop back on a train to Zurich and fly home where we will be able to share our new found glacier knowledge with many photos to accompany.