Kahiltna Glacier is one of my favorite places. I am happy that we got to go out there again this spring. The weather wasn't super cooperative, but we saw a brief window and the Park Service was able to make it work for us.
Despite all of our snow this past winter in Anchorage, it was a dry winter on Kahiltna. There was a lot of snow up at Kahiltna pass (>7 m!), but I suspect most of that fell late last summer. The rest of the glacier had less than 3 m of snow.
This work is in coordination with the National Park Service, and a lot of people made it possible. Mike Loso (NPS Inventory and Monitoring Program) recognized both the value of glacier mass balance measurements and the value of having us at USGS do this work. Tucker Chenowith (Denali NPS South District Ranger), and Joey McBrayer (Denali Lead Mountaineering Ranger) for valuing this work and supporting the logistics, Joe Reichert (Flight Coordinator and Mountaineering Ranger) and Kakiko Ramos-Leon (Mountaineering Ranger) for helping us with the fieldwork, and Eric Ridington (Denali contract helicopter pilot) for flying us to all of our sites. Thanks NPS!
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© Louis Sass
