first rainy day

Day 2 on the glacier and it's already raining. Franz Josef is known to be wet, and it lived up to its reputation today. It rained most of the morning and cleared up in the afternoon. By then, we were all soaked, so the wee bit of sun didn't make much of a difference. I was glad that I was covered from head to toe in goretex, although my pants could have been a bit more waterproof. Franz Josef would be the perfect location to test out waterproof gear in the future.

We installed the remaining two GPS units above the first ice fall and supplemented that area with seven stakes. According to the Franz Josef Glacier Guides, the ice fall was impassable just two weeks ago, so we were lucky to find a nice, maintained trail through the ice fall. Several of the crevasses in the icefall have stairs and handrails (rope attached to the ice via ice screws). It's quite weird to be out on a glacier on a well maintained trail. It's even weirder to see the old trails that have moved further down the glacier.

GPS setup. Inside the orange box is a battery and GPS receiver. A solar panel is attached to the orange box, and the antenna is on a metal pole drilled into the ice.