Posts in how stuff works

I was pretty unsatisfied with my first take on glaciers 101. Here's another attempt, after letting that stew for a while.

Glaciers 101

Glaciers are massive bodies of moving ice. Their scale is enormous, so it's easiest to understand them in comparison to more familiar topics.

Before I can start getting checked out as a guide, I need to pitch five tarps, practice my "beach speech" five times, and try out five glacier talks. I discussed these glacier talks a little while ago in the context of thematic interpretation. I need to be prepared to give two different "glacier talks." The first is an introduction to glaciers, and the second is elaborating on that to feed into a theme. Imagine that I'm delivering these out on the water, in nearby Aialik Bay.

Our top priority as guides is always keeping our clients safe. One key way we do that is by understanding tides, weather patterns, wind, and waves. After slowly putting some of these things together, today we had a culminating lecture discussing wind, waves, and currents in our area. There's way too much to put in one post, but my favorite discussion had to do with coastal convergence.

Here at KAW, our most popular trip is our Aialik (pronounced eye-Y'ALL-ick) Glacier day trip. On the trip, we paddle right up to the face of Aialik Glacier. Aialik is a tidewater glacier, which means it comes right up to the ocean and drops chunks of ice in it. Today we had the chance to learn more about tidewater glacier dynamics from Luke Rosier, which was lovely. My favorite portion was a discussion of the tidewater glacier cycle, which causes tidewater glaciers to advance and retreat cyclically over centuries.

Today was something of a hodgepodge. Our original schedule sent us on a day trip today, but the weather (25 knot winds and high seas) sadly made that impossible. Two of my favorite activities for the day were reading surface maps and experiencing the Seward community through my first First Friday.

Out on the water, waves are kind of a big deal. And there's one type of wave that takes the cake in terms of consistency and impact: tides. The tidal cycle is the sloshing of water around the Earth caused by the combined gravitational attraction of the Moon (2/3 of the effect) and the Sun (1/3 of the effect).

Recently I've been out west downhill skiing in glorious Park City, Utah. All that time around snow has prompted a lot of questions on wintry topics. It's led me to think about the physics of skiing again – here are some of the things I've been pondering.