The legendary aerial photographer and cartographer Bradford Washburn, who was a pioneer in aerial photography and cartography, abandoned hundreds of pounds of camera gear and surveying equipment when he was experiencing bad weather while exploring the area. Canada’s Yukon region is cold.
85 years later, in August, a group of scientists from the University of Arizona formed a scientific team. Mountain explorers who are professionalsDiscovered the long-lost cache of historic gear, which was buried under the ice at the remote Walsh Glacier.
Eight decades ago, Robert Bates and Washburn were attempting to climb Mount Lucania in Saint Elias Mountains. But bad weather forced them away from their heavy camera equipment.
In late April 2022, professional big-mountain skier Griffin Post set out on a three-week expedition onto the glacier – located within Canada’s Kluane National Park and Reserve – along with other adventurers and scientists, to hunt down the location of the cameras.
Post wrote, “I was hopeful. But I knew that it wasn’t like finding the needle in the haystack.” Press release. “A lot can occur in 85 years on a glacier.”
Dora Medrzycka from the University of Ottawa was selected to visit the site and map the glacier. This will help determine the location of the gear over time.
Medrzycka said that the group needed help in order to determine how the glacier was moving and the best method of finding the cache.
Remote assistance was provided by the University of Ottawa’s team of glaciologists.
The team arrived in the area and searched for information. Ski, foot, and snowboard.
Medrzycka stated that although she had an idea about where to look, it was not very specific. She added, “We covered many kilometers walking up and around the glacier.” We had trouble finding it – we couldn’t see it anywhere.”
The team scanned photographs of cache sites that had survived Washburn’s expedition to try and get an idea of the location of the camp.
The cameras were not found by the team until the August trip, which was shorter and more direct to the glacier.
Medrzycka stated that they were very close to giving up, as all their efforts were giving up on us.
Medrzycka formulated a new theory about the location of the ruins on the penultimate morning of the trip. Artifacts could be found.
Glaciers usually move at a constant rate over time, but Walsh glacier is rare, she explained, because it moves faster for one or two years every few decades.
The surge was what she saw in the glacier’s length. She believed that the debris was being carried by piles of rubbish. This gave her insight into the history of how the glacier flowed.
She was able to make a new estimate about where the items might be located, and it was only three or four more miles down the valley than the original location. It was approximately 14 miles from the place Washburn left them.
The team finally found the missing gear thanks to Medrzycka’s intuition. Medrzycka described it as an “amazing feeling” and added, “It wasn’t a failure at finding the cache. It was an incredible moment for everyone.”
Weeks later, ArchaeologistsParks Canada returned to Glacier with the expedition team to remove the camera from the ice. The expedition team recovered a substantial portion of Washburn’s Fairchild F-8 aerial cam with two motion-picture cameras, trekking poles, tents, other survival gear, and film.
Medrzycka says that Washburn was a photographer who took images of the area before he left his equipment behind. The team is now attempting to save the images from the decades-old film by developing it.
Medrzycka stated, “What’s most significant is that this data is new that we didn’t have without finding that cache.”
She stated that the results could be used to help scientists understand how glaciers move and added that “if this information is combined with satellite data, then we can try to figure out how this glacier, Walsh Glacier has changed over the past eight decades.”
This article was originally published in Business Insider.
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