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At the Ice’s Edge Piedmont and alpine are two of the four broad types into which glaciers are categorized. The categories are based on size and shape. The largest size glacier category is an ice sheet. Ice sheets are continental in scale and can cover over 50,000 square kilometers. They are found only in Greenland and Antarctica. In some places the Antarctic ice sheet is more than 4200 meters thick. Ice caps are smaller than ice sheets but larger than alpine and piedmont glaciers. Alpine glaciers, which are also known as valley glaciers, originate in ice sheets, ice caps, or snowfields. They spill down into valleys either of their own making or more commonly into ones made by preglacial streams. Hassan Basagic of the Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research project’s glacier team thinks the glaciers look like they’ve been squirted out of tubes of toothpaste. Others compare them to giant tongues. The Kiwi’s affectionately refer to one of the glaciers in Wright Valley as “Mick Jagger’s tongue.” The Lower Wright Glacier to which we were headed though falls into the fourth glacier category, piedmont glacier. Piedmont glaciers form when steep valley glaciers pour out into broad, relatively flat plains and spread out. Spread out definitely describes the Lower Wright. The glacier fills the entire east end of the valley. When we arrived at the glacier base, it looked like a confusing jumble of sediment and ice. Yet Lawrence easily found his way to his favorite climbing spot.
As I found out, in ice climbing you use crampons and two ice axes. Lawrence made a secure anchor at the top and roped us in. The ropes would catch us if we fell while climbing. Ray took the initiative and gave it a go first. An avid mountain biker and all-around athlete, Ray does those 24-hour adventure races – the kind in which you mountain bike, then run, then rappel, then kayak, then mountain bike again. Up and up he went, giving us a good start.
Kirk went next. He’s another outdoor-anything kind of person who hikes, backpacks, and river rafts. Typically on the more mellow side, today Kirk had that “Do Not Disturb” look of complete focus that he gets when he’s doing one of those Sudoku puzzles, muttering curses under his breath and mumbling about how he was going to have a few choice words with the co-worker who gave him the stupidly addictive puzzles in the first place. Determined, Kirk went up too.
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