Category: Landscape

Snowed-in Again

Currently, the Sierra Nevada in California is getting a good “snowing”. For a week already, I am not able to get out. Even if the snow would magically disappear, there are numerous branches and trees laying on the road (dirt road to start with, really).

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The snowing-in gives me the opportunity to show some old photos from 2008, when I was in the Antarctica doing good old research. Also there, after wanting to leave the West Antarctic Ice Shelf, it took 2 weeks for an airplane to get through, partially due to bad weather.

Here, I am arriving at McMurdo on Ross Island. The plane landed on the frozen ocean. So, under the feet is a thick layer of ice and then ocean.

After we did our survival training, instruments check, etc., we left McMurdo to fly to the West Antarctic Ice Shelf. At the location we camped, the elevation was about 2000 meters, with an ice-layer of 3000 meters below us. Here, a photo of our research luxury tent, in the distance, the blue spot. Since we did air measurements, we needed to stay away from the main camp, where an Ice-Core Drilling was underway, all the way through the ice.

Inside the tent, we had all sorts of instruments and a heater, to keep everybody not too cold. An a warm day, it was -30C, which is about -30F. Because of the low levels of stuff we were measuring, only home-made instruments where sensitive enough to detect what we were looking for. Even so the instruments look kinda glued together, they were top-of-the-line.

Finally, when the plane arrived, a quick photo of the funny guys. In this camp, there where about 40 people and a bulldozer. The bulldozer was used to push the snow away from the tents.

And here, finally, the air plane is arriving for pickup. Pilots don’t leave the plane and the engines are running while unloading and loading.

Waiting for Magic to happen…

Each year in the middle of February, when the Horsetail Waterfall in Yosemite is roaring, the sun angle before sunset is just right, and no clouds are covering the sky, the waterfall glows for a couple of minutes from orange to a deep red.

Thousands of people wait for hours to see the magic, including myself. And when it happens, a loud cheer echos through the valley. A special moment. While physics may explain the glowing invoking possibly “nonlinear optics and Mie scattering” on the fine water droplets generated by the fall, “Magic” is the birthplace of primitive religions and all the belief stuff that humans can imagine…

Giethoorn, a little town in Holland with plenty of history.

Records indicated that in the 13th Century flagellants immigrated from Southern Europe. I guess, they didn’t whip themselves too hard, otherwise they wouldn’t have made it to a place that might harbor waterborne deceases. Later on, in the 16th Century, Mennonites moved into the area, a radical protestant group that had enough of Catholic Rule. At the same time, peat extraction became a major source of income. To transport the peat, ditches and canals were dug. Two major floods (1776 and 1825) washed away vulnerable drying banks, creating large lakes around Giethoorn. I assume, wealth from the peat digging helped to built the beautiful homes and alter nature into this picturesque Wonderland … In the past, there were no roads, all transport was done using the canals. Today, bike paths exist, and if you don’t watch out, you might go for a swim.

In a way, those were already so called modern humans that didn’t want too much garden to take care of, keeping their plots manageable, homes sizable, and those nasty neighbors across the canal.