Two polar explorers add to their ‘Ice Legacy’ with perilous 20-day crossing of the Juneau Icefield

The shrinkage of the ice feeding the Mendenhall Glacier is just as noticeable from the top as from the visitor’s center — at least when not trying to save yourself from a snow bridge collapsing underneath or spending all day sheltering from a life-endangering storm.

Polar explorers Børge Ousland and Vincent Colliard had ample time to see the natural wonders and dangers of the Juneau Icefield, and how they’re changing over time, during a 20-day crossing they completed Friday. Their crossing, accompanied by two film crew members, was part of their Ice Legacy project that seeks to make them the first to cross Earth’s 20 largest icefields.

[See also: Two famed polar explorers crossing Juneau Icefield to prove large point about shrinking glaciers]

Such a trip generally involves dragging sleds filled with gear over various ice and snow formations while wearing crampons or skis, and often staying roped together — including sometimes in camp — to safeguard against things such as falling into crevasses. Along the way Ousland and Colliard also collected samples of ice, snow and algae for scientific study since the other primary objective of the Ice Legacy project is calling attention to the spreading impacts of climate change.

Filming Ousland, a Norwegian, and Colliard, a Frenchman now living in Norway, were Sarah McNair-Landry and Erik Boomer, who are notable polar region adventurers in their own right with numerous films and other projects to their credit.

Among the biggest challenges and surprises of the expedition was how much time they spent on rocks and dirt rather than ice and snow, Ousland said in an interview Saturday.

“We had to, I think, three times go on land and carry around difficult areas because it was just not possible to get through there (because) there was just so many crevices,” he said. “It’s so wild, which is beautiful, but at the same time you can’t progress if you enter one of these ice falls.”

The wet fall weather conditions added to the challenge in both warmer and colder conditions, with rain making the ice slippery and snow covering crevasses on seemingly flat surfaces.

According to the expedition’s Facebook page that tracked their progress on a near-daily basis, the group after setting out Sept. 23 “had to navigate dense forests and fast-flowing rivers” during its first few days, then make back-and-forth trips carrying gear up a steep slope to their access point to the icefield.

“It took us several days — I think, almost a week — to get all the equipment out there to the glacier,” Ousland said.

Peak and perilous moments while crossing the icefield

Ultimately, the group spent the majority of their days on the 1,500-square-mile icefield with its variety of terrain from jagged glaciers to smooth snowfields. On the ninth day the online log noted “the team is now on the Juneau ice sheet with a stunning view.”

A day later Colliard, in an audio post that included an animated map showing their progress, said they were making good progress after reaching a plateau on the icefield at nearly 2,000 meters in elevation (6,562 feet). But they ended the day making a partial descent down the Denver Glacier — one of 40 glaciers the icefield feeds — and they were facing a trip down the rest of the glacier and then up the Meade Glacier to get back to the plateau the following day.

“That looks to be quite a challenging place,” Colliard said of the Meade Glacier.

The assessment proved correct, he explained in the team’s next audio post two days later, as they covered only seven kilometers during two long days of navigating through perilous surroundings.

“The Alaskan glaciers are wild, especially at that time of the year,” Colliard said. “So it means a lot of raw ice, crevasses — one after the other — and trying to find a way. It’s challenging, so we had to split the team today. Sarah and Eric went on one side of the glacier. We went on the other side with Børge.”

“We ended up in a no man’s land where it will be very difficult for us to make any progress with the sled. So we took the decision to go back to carrying back-and-forth our equipment on the side of the ice, and hopefully we can find a good way. So yeah, not knowing the outcome makes the adventure very exciting.”

It would get more exciting during what Colliard called “a special day” in the team’s next audio post two days later — the 14th day of the expedition.

“We have had to travel and ski through many, many traverses, and one of the snow bridges suddenly fell under my weight,” he said. “So it’s always a strange feeling when suddenly the floor disappears. But of course we were roped up — and we are actually thinking that we might be roped up all the way to the end. It’s a very special time of the year where we can find here in altitude above 1,500 meters (that) it’s fresh snow and together with a little bit of wind it’s really camouflage the crevasses so very hard to see them. And so, for example, when we stopped tonight at camp we had to stay on the rope.”

A storm the following day resulted in what the team called a “rest day in the tent” with 62.7 kilometers (39 miles) remaining in their expedition.

But while they made good progress toward their final destination the day after the storm cleared, one more set of difficulties awaited as they reached the Taku Glacier on day 17, with a Facebook post stating it was “wet and moisture is everywhere, it’s making the descent really challenging.” On day 18 Ousland posted what he hoped might be the expedition’s last audio update from the field, describing yet another “interesting day.”

“When we came to a steep slope it was simply not possible to carry on on the ice,” he said. “It was jagged, huge mountains of ice, 10 meters deep crevasses and steep mountain slopes close at hand, so it was not possible to get through there. So we simply had to go on land and start to carry again. I had not believed that we should do this anymore but, yes, we had to carry everything, and it was raining and everything was cold due to soaking full of water. So it’s been challenging, to put it mildly. So we’re camping on land right now because we have to bypass this difficult stretch of ice on the Taku.”

But there were only 500 more meters to get to the end of that stretch and nine kilometers to the end of the journey, so the hope was to finish the trip the following day, Ousland said.

However, it was not to be. After 10 more hours of struggling through yet more difficult conditions the team has covered only 7.8 kilometers, Colliard said in what would be the final audio update from the field on Oct. 10.

“We thought late afternoon that it was wiser to just camp and don’t do anything stupid,” he said.

Afterthoughts and second thoughts

Expedition members reached their final destination the following day — last Friday — and the group departed Juneau on Saturday for Anchorage to drop off the scientific samples they collected with a University of Alaska Anchorage professor who specializes in Arctic ecosystem research. In addition to providing climate data, Ousland said it’s likely the snow and ice samples contain microplastics that are now a widespread threat to wildlife that ingest them even in the most remote of places.

The expedition occurred a few months after the release of a study stating the Juneau Icefield is melting at an “incredibly worrying” rate, with ice loss between 2015-19 twice as fast as before 2010 and nearly five times as fast compared to 1980s. The rapid retreat of the Mendenhall Glacier has been starkly visible in recent decades — to the point it may no longer be visible from the visitor’s center by 2050 — and climate change is seen as a factor in record flooding from Suicide Basin at the face of the glacier that is now considered an ongoing threat.

The large amount of ice mass loss on the icefield was clearly evident during the trip, Ousland said.

“On the tree line or other slopes you can actually see where the glacier has been before,” he said, “There is kind of a line there (where) it’s grass and trees, and under that — it’s a good section — was just bare rocks that means the glacier has just sunk in.”

The trip was scheduled in October — one of the wettest months in Southeast Alaska — due to the birth of Colliard’s first son in May. Ousland said conditions were similar to trips he’s done in Patagonia, so the team planned ahead by avoiding down-filled gear and bringing extra fuel to dry gear that did get wet.

However, Ousland said one change he would make in retrospect is taking different sleds better able to retain gear when they capsize, due to the difficulties they had navigating some section of the icefield.

Also, his advice to others is “I do recommend they do it in April or May when there’s more snow cover.”

The Juneau Icefield was the fourth and final expedition in Alaska for the Ice Legacy project, with three icecaps on Canada’s Ellesmere Island scheduled for April or May of next year, Ousland said. But he said he’s likely to return to Southeast Alaska, although perhaps for less challenging excursions.

“My God, what a beautiful place up there — those jagged peaks, this wild ice,” he said. “So it was really, really a great adventure.”

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.