Joe Viechnicki, KFSK - PetersburgStudents surveyed points along the terminus of the LeConte Friday, May 20, 2022. From left teacher Alice Cumps, Charlotte Martin, Alexus Sakamoto Quezon, Stacey Eilenberger, Rose Quitslund, Leiah Kittams, DD Toyomura and teacher Tom Thompson.
Johnson had a scheduling conflict and was disappointed not to be able to travel to the glacier this year. But he recommends the experience. DD Toyomura, Stacey Eilenberger and Charlotte Martin record points in LeConte Bay Friday, May 20, 2022. They had some help from a couple of alumni of the program, Lydia Martin and Julian Cumps, back from college.
“It’s such a big glacier when you’re looking at it from our perspective, it’s really hard to see the recession and procession until you really plot the data, because it looks kind of the same and you might realize that it’s moved 500 feet or 1000 feet either way, but what we plotted on Friday could be totally different here on Monday, because even as we were there it calves so much,” Thompson said. “And if anybody’s been out there recently LeConte is full of ice.
“I guess going up a second time I just had more knowledge of what we were supposed to do like setting up and then I guess trying to find the angles in the first place because you have time match up the two different spots from what would be on the north side and what would be on the south side,” Kittams said. “So it’s a lot of like re-imagining where the points are actually at on the glacier.”