Last week I joined the glaciology field course organised by my friend and colleague Stephan at the Langenferner glacier.
There were 8 students from ACINN and 4 from the geography department. The agenda for the week was quite intense since the field course also served another purpose: provide the last stake readings of the hydrological year 2017, which means that we had to read all the ablation stakes and drill a few new ones before the winter snow covers them all.
Altogether the field course was a great success. The unusual snow cover (70 cm at the top!) didn’t discourage our students who were all eager to help and learn. Our mountain guide Lukas made sure everybody was safe and gave the necessary crevasse rescue course before going to the glacier.
The students learned how to navigate on a glacier, how to measure and drill ablation stakes, make a snow density profile and much more. Here are some impressions from the course:
