Aysén 2024

3/22

I'm still drying out from our field research trip, we arrived back at about 1:00am last night in Coyhaique. The research was a joint investigation with several different teams taking advantage of the logistical obstacle that is fieldwork in Patagonia. The site is located on the western margins of the Northern Patagonia Icefield (some of the rainiest areas in the world). The forecast was for 30 mm of rain the first day, and >60 mm of rain the second day (or about 3.5 inches in two days) with temps hovering around 50*F in the day. The Patagonian landscapes are known for their thick vegetation and grueling approaches, and this valley was held to the reputation. The first day took more than 5 hours to advance a meager 3 km, literally crawling through, over, and under, the thick vegetation. We decided to throw camp at a reasonably dry (read not actively flooded) space for the night and postpone the planned 1 day slog to base camp. The second day was rainy as well, but had some windows of more amicable weather. We quickly marched the remaining kilometers to the lake where we again  inflated our packrafts to cross the Laguna Gualas to get to base camp. 

The different projects entailed a few surveys for insects and fish that are recolonizing the recently deglaciated landscapes. While the work is relatively simple, documenting the types of collected species, we soon realized the reason was for the difficulty of accessing these types of landscapes with the necessary equipment. The work I was supporting was lead by my in-country mentor, Iñigo Irarrazaval, who had a large team out in November to start a project looking at glacier recession rates on four glaciers on the Northern Patagonia Icefield. They had installed several sites of ablation stakes, (which are long poles that are drilled and installed into the glacier, left over a season, and then measured at the end of the season to calculate the glacial deflation rates), and flown a drone equipped with high-precision GPS to generate a surface elevation model to compare between different flights. 

The trip back down was GREATLY facilitated by the packrafts which made quick work of the 2 day slog up. The only difficult part were the beginning rapids that form right at the exit from the Laguna to the river, which had two sizeable holes and churning rapids below. Packrafts are relatively stable when loaded with weight, but could easily be turn over with a wrong turn down one of these eddys, which makes for a very cold swim in the 2*C water. My packraft was slightly larger than others, which gives increased stability and speed in open water, but makes it a touch harder to turn in rapids. As it happens, the person that I was following, who was familiar with the line through the rapids, narrowly escaped being sucked into the largest of the holes at the bottom, but I was not so lucky. I realized I was too far left and desparately tried to steer out of the way to avoid the 1.5 m drop and churning waters below (I know it doesn't sound big, but in the water with all your stuff tied to a boat, threatened with a very cold swim, it feels a lot bigger).  I tried to straighten out the best I could after I realized the inevitability of going over the rapid, and leaned hard when the eddy tried eating the side of my boat. Luckily, it quickly spun me around and spit me out, with only a wave of ice water filling the bottom of my boat but comparatively dry (we had dry suits so it was mostly just cold, and not wet).  The rest of the ride down was an easy paddle with incredible views of the higher peaks, views which are rarely seen due to the tempests which cover the higher peaks. We were picked up by the logistics crew with hot Gnocci awaiting us and drinks with ice taken from floating iceburgs in the Estero Elefantes. 

3/14

It's been a busy stretch with research, hence the lapse since my last post. I feel like the project is taking on a life of it's own, making contacts with different interest-holders, teasing out the different topics and concepts that are braided into the complex interactions here. Working in this region for years has enabled me to have a kick-start of the difficult work of making connections and understanding not only the different interactions, but who even to begin talking to. Where some people are much harder to gain confidence with (Guachos are notoriously callado, or hard to win their confidence), I've found working within and involving the community members has enabled me to strategically make connections with important community members who would otherwise not converse with me. For example, my friend and local guide Ilango (pic 2) accompanied me to several interviews with local Gaucho families who would have been presumably more cautious to discuss their personal histories in this region. It has helped me to not only understand how to better work with people, but also deepened my appreciation and respect for the personal histories that people elect to share with me. 

While people understandably think of mountains when prompted with glaciers, I wanted to understand the downstream impacts of GLOFs and other concerns of coastal Chile, and took advantage of a visit from some friends from my fellowship to travel through the fjords of Aysen.  The coastal waters of Aysen have been in the news lately from a hotly contested struggle between artisanal fishing, indigenous land rights, and international salmon industry. While this topic is much too complex to do justice to the lengthy fight that the Mapuche community and other indigenous peoples have had against the Salmon Industry, I've been learning from a local Sociedad Mapuche that are at the forefront of this fight against the contamination and decimation of coastal life that the salmon industry poses in Chile. Traversing these Fjords was an incredible experience that helped me to appreciate the resilience of the Indigenous and fishing communities, I was all the more happy to share the experience with my friends Sammy and Mari. We took a day to explore a famous glacier here, Ventisquero Colgante in National Park Queulat, or the Hanging Glacier. We finished off the trip with some hotsprings that are found along the banks of a fjord which you have to know the specific location and time your visit with low tide, as they are swallowed by the high tide.

The next week, I'll be assisting on a field camp at Glacier Gualas on the western (read 'Rainy') side of the Northern Patagonia Icefield with my local mentor, Iñigo at the Centro de Investigacion de Ecosistema de la Patagonia (CIEP), a part of Aysen which I have not gone to at all. I'm excited to learn about their project about the rates of glacier recession on the NPI and the possible explanations of what is happening. It is expected to be wet and cold, and we will again access the glacier via packraft. But today is my birthday and I'm celebrating by making a manjar cake (manjar is similar to the carmel like dulce de leche for the americans here, and is a gift from god which may be single-handedly responsible for whatever weight I may gain here) for the family I'm staying with and delivering a couple pieces of cake to friends around town. 

2/26

Field Research is one of my favorite parts of doing science, but it requires a lot of planning, preparation, and some adaptability. You have to have the questions dialed enough to know exactly how you want to answer them, and yet have several fallbacks in case things don’t go as planned. It’s quite stressful, especially when you have several thousands of dollars (or more) committed to the research project, or you have dedicated years to learning, planning, and now executing a plan. This last week was the field excursion of the GLOF geomorphology project, looking at a more detailed view of GLOF impacts in Patagonia.

               -Quick recap, GLOF stands for Glacier Lake Outburst Floods. These are potentially deadly events that are expected to impact glaciated areas as glaciers retreat. While GLOF events can leave traces of past events for decades or even >100 years in some areas, GLOFs are surprisingly harder to trace in Patagonia due to the thick vegetation and the precipitous climate. For this reason, my research is an in-depth (pun intended) analysis of a GLOF which occurred about 35 years ago-

               Reaching the field site is no small task. The journey begins with an approximate 6 hour in bus ride from Coyhaique (and that’s excluding the transit from US to Chile) to Puerto Bertrand, a small community situated on the Rio Baker. From here, we take a 1.5-2 hr boat ride up the river, crossing two lakes, to deposit us at the mouth of the Rio Soler. Depending where you want to arrive, it can be a two to three day hike up the valley to the area of interest. This year, our hike was a cool ~8 miles to the upper boundary of our AOI. In order to facilitate the collection of samples, I contacted a local rafting guide that knows this area well and runs a packrafting business, a type of inflatable boat used for light and fast water transportation that you can strap some equipment and backpacks to. Unfortunately, this increased the weight of our packs we’d have to hoof up the valley. Including our normal camping equipment, the steel instruments used to extract soil samples, food for three people for a week, and the packrafts/helmet/paddle/dry suits/life vest, our packs were much heavier than optimal. The good news was that all the heavy lifting would be over once we arrived at upper reaches of the Rio Soler, as it was literally all down hill (or down-river rather) from there.

               After reaching the upper reaches, I had previously identified areas of interest where potential evidences of the GLOF would be present in the tree record or sediment. Finding the evidence would entail extracting a small (5mm) wood core, using an increment borer, from trees that looked old enough to be impacted by the GLOF. Impacts range from impacts from the water, strikes or scars from passing debris (like floating trees), or longer-term stresses related with changes in the valley hydrology. The next evidence we sought after was sediment that would have been deposited by the GLOF. We know from local accounts, and from hydrologic models I created and ran, that the flood wave covered the valley floor wall-to-wall with water several meters deep (almost a mile wide in some areas!!). This water was thick with debris from chaotic and high-energy water, and would have transported huge amounts of sediment, eroding in some areas and depositing in others. I identified areas of the valley with potentially lower energy where sediment would have been deposited. In these areas, we had large tubes of steel which we drove into the ground to obtain ground sediment samples. We were somewhat anxious about being able to find and identify the exact layer that was deposited from the flood, and after a few difficulties finding the best areas to extract samples, we were hootin’ and hollerin’ when we found a large (10cm thick) layer of course sand, followed by a distinct layer of vegetation (the valley floor prior to the 1989 GLOF).

Our plan was to jump from site to site rather easily using the packrafts, a plan which allowed for joyous moments of relaxation and incredible views of the valley. I still have a lot of analysis to sort out the samples we extracted, but we left the valley feeling accomplished with the hard work we put in over the six days we had in field, and probably a couple pounds lighter from the light meals we had planned for the trip. We celebrated the trip with several orders of papas fritas, sopaipillas (very similar to fry bread), completos, and a churrasco in Puerto Bertrand. I have a couple days to organize notes, wash laundry, and backup data before heading back south for a couple weeks of living with families in the area to conduct more in-depth interviews.

Feb 16

I’ve had an incredible couple weeks here in Coyhaique, building momentum little by little on research (which, consequently, has made it difficult to find time to give periodic updates on the blog). The last few days, I’ve found some really great contacts to help understand the recent changes here in Aysén. Overall, people seem really excited about my questions, and have been unbelievably helpful in giving their perspectives and experiences. Several themes appear particularly salient from the conversations with various interest-holders. They have predominantly had political or state-institutional backgrounds, which I’m looking forward to comparing to different community members experiences (tour guides, gauchos or ranchers, or other community members).  

The upcoming week, I’ll be in Valle Soler, which is the valley where the glacier flood I’m studying occurred in 1989, collecting samples from sediment deposits and affected trees. These samples will help fill in the gaps of the recent history of this valley, and will be used to ground-truth the hydrologic model I made of the 1989 flood. When seeing the results of my model, many planners have expressed apprehension over the changes they see (not only the environmental changes in the landscape, but also the political changes from the increase of populations in this region), and the lack of institutional preparation or of resources to meaningfully address what they understand as a potential hazard. To this end, I’m really focusing on the people of this region in this post. The idea of Patagonia tends to project a landscape which is pristine, free from the pollution which we have come to see as a (false-binary) necessity by-product of modernity. While it may be population density is low in this region, we cannot forget the people that have lived, and are currently living here in this region. A seemingly minor oversight to study landscapes and not relationships, the unfortunate reality of how science has been conducted has had dramatic impacts in the lives of those who are front-line to the very dynamics the scientific community seeks to understand. I’m hoping to learn how to reorient my research to be not only attentive to, but indeed driven by the local community’s needs and agendas.

Jan 10

Our Pathways group arrived in Santa Isabel, a small getaway village that Cuencanos use to escape to warmer and more tropical weather. The retreat was intended to give us some space to relax, focus, and make some headway on our projects. They amenities have been incredible, and despite the distractions (I mean, look at those views) our group has been very excited about our project. The city of Cuenca experienced its worst drought in recorded history starting in September, going over 118 days without significant rain. The drought brings obvious negative consequences of inadequate water for agricultural use, irrigation, and hydroelectric energy production, and is especially difficult for poorer cmmunities living in the periphery of the urban center. However, secondary impacts from drought can include longer term changes in soil properties such as compaction, increase hydrophobia of surface soil horizons decreased infiltration capacity, and increased erosion and runoff. So when an otherwise heavy but not extreme precipitation event did occur during the drought, the infiltration capacity of the soil was quickly exceeded which caused flooding in the downstream reaches in Cuenca. The water filtration plant was not able to keep up with the rapid influx of sediment laden flood waters, and was forced to shut down for a few hours. With climate change, not only will extreme events like this increase in frequency and magnitude, the compounding interactions between extremes (rapidly fluctuating between drought and flood conditions) are likely to bring dangerous scenarios that we are not familiar with. This is further exacerbated by structural inequality in which marginal communities are unable to secure water in current conditions, let alone future extremes. We are using the 2023 drought/flood events to explore recent past climate conditions to examine adaptation potential to future climate uncertainties.

This last week was difficult to stay focused as the country was cast into a violent state of emergency.  It was hard to see my new friends here watch in horror as their home country descended into chaos. The lived reality of local corruption, the creeping violence of the global drug market (fueled largely by US consumption), and the consequences of US imperialism overshadows our work here like a persistent nervousness that never quite leaves. In truth, we are only here for a short few more days, and then will board airplanes and depart to our research stations. The hard realization that this national emergency could easily develop into a prolonged cartel war, not too dissimilar from that of Colombia or Mexico. Talking with our Ecuadorian colleagues, they are hopeful this state of emergency will be a short episode and that things will improve, but the necessity to be prepared for alternatives requires hard conversation. Yesterday, we spoke with a professor at a local University who had to make safety plans for medical students who change shifts at late hours in the night. This raises obvious implications for the security of the students, as well as logistical nightmares for the nationally imposed curfew.  The cost of contracting a fleet of buses and drivers to transport students to their homes, sometimes in small villages over an hour away, causes ripple effects for the University. This is all to say that we are safe here, things are rapidly improving on the ground, and we hope it continues to do so. We have another day and a half to work on our project here before returning to Cuenca and then on to Chile for my research.

Dec 30, 2023

After a fairly arduous red-eye flight, I arrived in Quito. The city is surprisingly cooler and mountainous than expected, due to the season and altitude (around low 60s yesterday, elevation ~2850 m or 9350 ft). The drive in was spent conversing about culture and traditions of Quito and Ecuador. The driver indicated the numerous street selling of large 3-6ft dolls and explained that drawing close to the New Years, families will buy or construct dolls in the image of one or more members of their family. The dolls are charged vicariously with the year's sins, misfortunes, bad luck, summarily doused in gasoline, and burned at midnight on the 31st. I was curious about local cuisine and enquired from the taxi driver what I must eat, spending only 24 hours in Quito. He told me about the typical fried platanos, rice, corn and chicken, but then said I should try grilled Cuy. "Cuy?" I asked, not familiar with the word. "It's similar to conejo, or rabbit, but without the long ears." I remembered the word when, hours later, I saw a street vender selling Cuy hot off the grill. It was good, and I was hungry. It wasn't until the next day when, wandering a souvenir shop, I found out what it was. There were typical tchotchke's and keepsakes, wallets imprinted with animals from the area. El Aguila, with a large eagle above, Oso Andino, with a picture of the Andean Bear. I stopped when I saw "Cuy" with a picture of a Guinea Pig above. 

I leave the 31st to Cuenca where I will meet up with the rest of the Pathways group where we will be for approximately 2 weeks. We have a reservation at a restaurant overlooking the city to bring in the new year. I'm excited to meet the rest of our group and get working.