Don't blink!

If you squint really hard, you can just barely make out the first tiny trickle of water melting off the snow on the mountains towering over the Fraser Valley. Okay, maybe not. But if the last few days of balmy weather are to be trusted, the spring freshet can’t be far off.

I’m back in British Columbia to sample the Fraser River during the most dynamic time of year: the spring freshet. This is the most exciting period when the river shifts from its quiet, winter-time state to a rushing torrent of water and mud. As the ground warms and the water level rises, vast stores of sediment, nutrients, and organic matter are flushed off the land and into streams across the basin, drastically changing the chemistry of the water. This is the most important time to sample a river, because the composition of many chemical properties is so different from the rest of the year, and the amount of material exported dwarfs that of the summer, fall, and winter.

Our sampling campaign during the 2011 freshet captured a snapshot of this period all over the basin, in tributaries from the Rocky Mountains to the floodplain. This year, I’m sitting in one spot – our time series location in Fort Langley, near the river mouth – and collecting samples every day to make sure I don’t miss the chemical pulse I expect to see right as the water level begins to rise.

So for now, I’m just settling into my sampling routine and getting to know my new instrumentation. Will this year’s freshet be as big as last year’s – the biggest in 40 years?  Only time will tell…

Pass the salt

En route between the Nahatlatch River and the mouth of the Fraser, we made a brief stop at Lytton to observe the mixing of the blue Thompson, the largest tributary of the Fraser River, with the muddy Fraser. The swirling eddies clearly visible at this point provided a natural platform for our resident physical oceanographer, Rocky Geyer, to pontificate on the dynamics of mixing. The two streams remain separate for a considerable distance downstream despite the turbulent flow of the river.

After following the mighty Fraser from its icy beginnings at the base of Rocky Mountain glaciers through raging tributaries of the Cariboo and Coast Mountains, we finally concluded our journey at the estuary near Vancouver, where muddy river water first meets the ocean in the Strait of Georgia. We chartered a whale watching boat to take us across the freshwater-saltwater transition at different tidal stages. Using CTD casts, we watched a wedge of saltwater at depth creep upstream with the rising tide, then retreat with the ebb. We also collected grab samples of bottom sediments, which will inform us about what types of sediment (small clay and mud particles versus large sand grains) are deposited at different points across this transition.

Our time in Vancouver was graced by beautiful sunshine, which made exploring the city on our last day all the more enjoyable. Despite nursing cuts, sunburns, twisted ankles, blisters, and colds on our return trip to Boston, I'm sure we were all sufficiently distracted by pleasant memories of the gorgeous surroundings we enjoyed over the last 10 days and the exciting science that infused all our adventures. Thanks to everyone who organized and participated in this year's Geodynamics trip, and thanks for reading!

Paddle out

Yesterday was the heart-pumping high-point of our trip. After a long drive out of the Rockies (with a final stop at the Swiss bakery and brief layover at the Packing House cafe in Spences Bridge, a Fraser expedition tradition), we finally arrived at the REO Rafting Resort outside Boston Bar in the Fraser Canyon. We were all excited to decompress, shower, and get a good night's sleep after three nights in the woods. And we needed to rest up for our next adventure: white water rafting.

After breakfast, we each shimmied into wetsuits and piled onto a big orange school bus, which delivered us to a launch point on the Nahatlatch River. Within minutes we were on the water practicing our paddling and man-overboard rescue skills. Then the action really started. We started hurdling down the Nahatlatch in our rafts, occasionally steered expertly into waves and rocks by our guides, with the river bed racing past under the clear blue water. More than just a thrill ride, this was an awesome opportunity to experience the raging flow of a mountain river at high water, the canyon walls of the Coast Mountains jutting up on either side and huge log jams sticking out from the banks now and then. When the ride was finished, we availed ourselves of a few water samples, which affirmed the clear nature (i.e. low solute and particle load) of the river we had just traversed.

After a relaxing afternoon discussing the local geology in the sun back at the resort, we ended the evening with a few presentations on river geochemistry. Some of the resort staff even sat in, curious about the geology of the area after perusing our Roadside Geology of Southern B.C. book while we were out rafting. Today we are off to Vancouver to see what happens when rivers meet the sea...

Britta Voss

Backpacking in the shadow of Mount Robson

Greetings from British Columbia. After arriving in Vancouver, the Geodynamics class took the long journey up from Vancouver to Mount Robson provincial park for 4 days and 3 nights of backpacking. After sorting out all our gear, picking up some delicious Warschauerbrot (Warsaw bread) from the Valemount Swiss bakery (and yummy croissants), and picking up some fuel, we were off to the trail head. We quickly got a taste of the amazing views to come, as we drove up to the breath-taking snow-capped peaks of the Rocky mountains. We started off on the trail and followed the roaring Robson river up toward Kinney Lake. A lunch stop overlooking the lake allowed us to take in the beauty of the glacial lake and its blue waters. The water is unusually cloudy and appears much bluer than pure freshwater due to the glacial rock flour (very finely ground up dust from when the glaciers grind the rocks beneath them). After our lunch we continued our climb towards our campsite at Whitehorn. After arriving at our campsite, setting up our tents, and cooking dinner, we had a discussion about the geology of British Columbia and Mount Robson.

The next day we continued our climb towards Berg Lake by heading up the Valley of a Thousand Falls. The tough climb was completely worth it as we experienced amazing views of huge waterfalls. The highlight of the climb was making it to Emperor falls, where we were able to stand at the base of the raging waterfall. After climbing out of the valley of a thousand falls, we got our first views of the huge glaciers that we would spend the next night camping in front of: Mist glacier and Berg glacier. Finally we arrived at Berg lake, named such due to the icebergs that spatter it year round from the calving of Berg glacier. After setting up camp, we took a short hike out to the Robson glacier to see the ultimate source of the Robson river.

The next day we had a short detour up to Toboggan Falls before heading back down to the Whitehorn campsite. After a very rainy night, we got up early for the hike back to the trail head. After a great hike, we celebrated our success with more delicious baked goods from the Swiss bakery, before heading off to the rafting resort.

Andrea Dubin

Now with 200% more adrenaline!

Welcome to yet another installment of Fraser River exploits! This time, we are here with a large group of MIT/WHOI students and WHOI faculty on the annual Geodynamics field trip. Unlike our usual sampling programs, this expedition will focus on experiential learning through observation and excursion (i.e. fun in the great outdoors). Tomorrow we set off for three nights on the Berg Lake trail, which will take us to the Robson glacier at the base of Mount Robson, the tallest peak in the Canadian Rockies. We of course won't have internet during this time, so you'll have to wait a few days to hear all the juicy details. Stay tuned!

All we have to report today is our grueling all-day journey from Woods Hole to Valemount, BC. Some of us left Woods Hole at 3am (Eastern Time), and we arrived in Valemount at 10pm (Pacific Time). So, if you're keeping track, that's nearly 24 hours in transit. We were only rained on briefly, so our hopes are high for fair weather while we're out in the elements. To keep ourselves amused through the sleep deprivation (and add a bit of officialdom to our walkie-talkie messages), we christened our three minivans with code names: Phoenix, Iceberg, and Blizzard. This should be my last post for a while, as I let other students tell you about our adventures. See you in a few days!

Britta Voss

Nothing gold can stay

After three fast-paced days of sampling and filtering, our expedition has finally come to an end. On Monday we finally got into the Fraser River, thanks to Metro Port Vancouver, who once again offered the services of their Port Fraser patrol boat in the delta. We collected a total of 300 liters of water at different depths in order to determine how well-mixed the suspended particles in the river are. We then returned to the hotel to begin the filtration marathon.

Tuesday we met the UFV students at the time series sampling site in Fort Langley. The students seem excited about the expanded sampling protocol (including dissolved organic carbon, radiocarbon, deuterium, trace metals, and DNA samples, in addition to the major ion, nutrient, and strontium isotope samples they have collected for over a year already). We hope that they are gaining valuable experience and scientific inspiration in the process! We also appreciated their help in processing samples today and yesterday in the lab. We spent the better portion of the last two days at UFV filtering our massive water samples, not an easy task in the face of stubbornly leaky equipment and quickly clogging filters. But the team effort made the work easy and by the end of the day, we had generated an impressive set of extremely clean water bottles. We're looking forward to diving into another set of fantastic samples back at WHOI!

Things I will miss about B.C.:

• the mountains, everywhere
  
• salmon on every menu
  
• the awesome UFV students (special thanks to Jenna for helping with filtration and lignin extraction ALL DAY today)
  
• Stanley Cup fever (especially Tyler, the charmingly belligerent Canucks fan on the SkyTrain)
  
• the wonderful cafes/bakeries in every small town we visited (Wendel's in Fort Langley, City Blends in Abbotsford, German bakery in Lillooet, Granville Coffee in Quesnel, Books & Company in Prince George, the Beanery in McBride, the Swiss Bakery in Valemount, and of course Packing House in Spences Bridge)
  

And for those who entered the "How high will it go?" water level contest, although the freshet is not quite finished on the Fraser, the maximum level recorded so far at Hope was 8.75 meters. The lucky winner will be treated to a free slideshow of pictures from our trip, with commentary! Or, if they would rather watch paint dry, cookies. But I should point out that this was the lowest estimate, and judging from the considerable snowpack still locked up in the mountains, I would wager that it might rise more yet...the adventure never ends!

Up in the air

We are now firmly back in the Fraser floodplain, gearing up for our final sampling sites. Saturday was our longest driving day of the expedition, over 700 km between Valemount and Langley. Along the way paid another visit to the Hell's Gate rapids, which gave us a chance to scope out afternoon lighting in the canyon, an important attribute for our next day's activities...

Yesterday was perhaps our most exciting day. We had the opportunity to take a small plane flight over the lower portion of the Fraser valley. The plane was operated by LightHawk, an organization that provides volunteer pilots for conservation and scientific missions. Our pilot, Hunter Handsfield, met us at the Abbotsford airport, and soon we were up in the air gazing down at the Fraser from hundreds of feet above! The views were absolutely spectacular: gliding upstream, we saw the rugged peaks of the Coast and Cascade mountains surrounding the flat floodplain, then the opening of the canyon as the Fraser curves north, and finally the stunning contrast at the confluence of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers at Lytton. I was especially surprised by how widespread patches of clearcut logging were in every forested area we saw. We then turned south and passed over the delta at Vancouver where we looked down on the mixing of the muddy Fraser River plume with the blue waters of the Strait of Georgia. In a matter of a few hours we had gained a totally new perspective of this area by being able to see the transitions between mountains, canyon, floodplain, and estuary all at once. And our photographer Chris captured some amazing images for his multimedia piece before returning home to Seattle.

Today we are sampling the delta; we plan to collect large volumes of water in a depth profile for filtration to characterize the suspended particulates. We look forward to a long day or two of filtration to follow...