Fantastic day trip to Thwaites Glacier!

On the morning of Jan. 8, for the first time since we arrived at WAIS Divide, weather reports from a crew of traversing staff and forecasts showed a gorgeous bluebird day on Thwaites Glacier. We and USAP staff quickly started making arrangements to start our reconnaissance flight to Thwaites. Nick from the British Antarctic Survey, Mark, a USAP mountaineer, and Twin Otter pilots Jordan and Alex joined us for the reconnaissance trips to our planned future field sites for the TIME project.

Our Twin Otter flight group except for Alex (taking the photo) on Thwaites Glacier.

Map of ice flow speed (from MEaSURE's data) in West Antarctica showing WAIS Divide, Thwaites Glacier, and Pine Island Glacier. The black triangles are previous and current PoleNet seismic stations. The colored shapes are proposed work areas for the TIME team at the eastern shear margin of Thwaites Glacier. We have two main work sites, TIME1 and TIME2. During the recce flights, we successfully landed at both sites, and two mountaineers affirmed that the entire shear margin looks very workable. We didn't see evidence of crevassing or difficult snow conditions across the eastern shear margin.

The reconnaissance trip to the eastern shear margin of Thwaites Glacier was very productive and successful. The entire eastern shear margin appeared to be free of crevassing and difficult snow conditions, so we are optimistic that we will be able to complete our proposed work in those areas. Jordan and Alex also successfully landed the Twin Otter at both of our proposed camp sites, so it appears that conditions are good for setting up our camp and field equipment via Twin Otter flights for the next three field seasons.

Nearly the entire area we flew over - TIME1, TIME2, Turn1, and Lower Thwaites Glacier and back across central Thwaites Glacier to WAIS Divide - was flat and white and beautiful.

The WAS (West Antarctic Support) traverse was at Lower Thwaites Glacier caching supplies for the future field work on Thwaites, mostly International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) teams, so we visited them briefly while refueling at Lower Thwaites. A British Antarctic Survey traverse will be caching additional supplies on Thwaites later this summer season.

Snow conditions change all the time, so we'll be carefully checking conditions in each season that we work on Thwaites. It was great to see our field sites and to hear that the area looks very workable for future field seasons!

Observing the planned locations for future TIME seismic, GPS, and radar sites from the Twin Otter.

Discussing the flight plan on board the Twin Otter.

Flying over the eastern shear margin of Thwaites.

Patterns of sastrugi (windblown snow formations) in the snow on Thwaites Glacier.

After flying over the shear margin, we visited the WAS (West Antarctic Support) traverse at Lower Thwaites Glacier, where we refueled before heading back to WAIS Divide.

After flying over the shear margin, we visited the WAS (West Antarctic Support) traverse at Lower Thwaites Glacier, where we refueled before heading back to WAIS Divide.

Views at Lower Thwaites Glacier.