Glacier caves Expedition to a frosty volcano
The ice-covered Mount Rainier welcomes its few visitors with an inhospitable world. Most people who come here stay only for one hour. Andreas Pflitsch stayed for a week and entered new scientific territory.
After returning from Mount Rainier, Prof Dr Andreas Pflitsch describes his trip as extremely tiring. At the same time, he raves about it as a highlight of his scientific career. “When I was on the top, I was counting the days to go down again,” he explains, “but I would do it again, though”.
He had raised doubts about the theories of other scientists during a conference. Those doubts helped the enthusiastic cave researcher secure a place in the expedition. Together with eleven other scientists, he climbed Mount Rainier in the state of Washington in August 2015. The trip was financed by National Geographic along with other sponsors.
The glacier caves on the top of the mountain were the team’s goal. Apart from the fact that they exist, hardly anything was known about these natural formations. How big are they? How were they created? Do they change? Is there any life found within them?
Pflitsch, who is the director of the Cave and Subway Climatology Working Group, explores ice and lava caves around the world. When he got the chance to join the expedition team of Ranger Eddy Cartaya from National Forest Oregon, he did not hesitate.
No comfort on the mountain peak
The team prepared for the trip a year in advance. “An enormous expenditure,” remembers Pflitsch. However, not everything followed the original plan. One helicopter was not permitted and as they were about to start, there were fewer porters available as were previously agreed upon. As a result, some of the measuring instruments had to remain at the foot of the mountain. To top it all off, a tent blew away after the group was caught in a storm.
At an altitude of 4,440 metres and with negative temperatures, there was no comfort to be found on the windy mountain peak. Pflitsch recalls the team’s icy shared toilet, which he describes as an open corner over ice and more or less protected from the wind. “After all you had a fantastic view from there,” he explains with a laugh. “The sunsets with the shadow of the volcano were terrific and it was worth freezing for.”
We could work in places nobody had ever seen before.
Andreas Pflitsch
Around 5,000 climbers conquer Mount Rainier every year; but they just linger at the peak for about an hour and then go away. The scientists withstood the harsh conditions for a whole week. “We could work in places nobody had ever seen before and also enter new scientific territory,” Pflitsch says.
The crater of Mount Rainier is filled with ice. Beneath that, hot jets of steam escape and melt the ice, forming caves that have their own climates and characteristic air circulations. They change constantly.
The climatologists from Bochum want to develop a detailed model for the air currents in order to figure out whether they vary periodically. Additionally, they are interested in the impact of outside weather and fumaroles on the caves’ climates. The latter emit steam and volcanic gases.
These questions can only be answered with long-term measurements and special devices. Unfortunately, not all of Pflitsch’s equipment reached the mountain peak due to the lack of porters accompanying the team. Large flow measurements were therefore not possible. Nevertheless, the scientist still had plenty to do.
Their working day began around sunrise when the team climbed down along the crater rim into the ice cave. Together with his colleagues, Pflitsch recorded the first data on expansion, temperature, air humidity and airflows. The researchers also placed sensors for long-term measurements.
After eight or nine hours in the cave, they returned to camp, where they still had some energy left to have dinner. “The air is really thin and you run out of breath and lack energy,” Pflitsch reports. Despite the exhaustion, he could never sleep through the night. “In the tent, it was constantly cold and wet and there was always this strong wind,” the researcher says, describing his nights on Mount Rainier. “It was exhausting.”
Sleeping inside an active volcano
Additionally, there was always an ever-present awareness that he was in the crater of an active volcano. The seismic activity of the crater is, indeed, controlled; however, the ice cover which caps the crater hinders the detection of a pending eruption and could also cause an explosive mixture of magma and melting ice.
At 57-years-old, Andreas Pflitsch was the oldest member of the team. He admits: “I reached my limits for the first time.” But his irrepressible curiosity is still larger than the wish to work cosily in his office.
For Pflitsch, the trip to Mount Rainier was not the first of its kind. Two months earlier, he climbed Mount Hood in the US state of Oregon for research projects. Now he is planning his next expedition into the ice world. He will climb Mount Rainier again in the summer of 2016 and another volcano – this time, Mount Helen – is slotted for 2017.
“When I am 60, I can take things a little easier,” he thinks, but who knows whether the adventurous researcher will stick to it.