State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

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Foreigners in a Strange Land

June 22, 2011

After a very cold morning in Crucero, the sun burned off the clouds to reveal the black peaks of the Cordillera Carabaya to the east. There´s not so much snow left on the hills these days, just a few glacier patches clinging to the south faces of the highest summits. Nonetheless, the vista is spectacular and Crucero by day is quite colourful, with fantastically painted buildings spaced around a busy plaza.

Stars over Laguna Aricoma

We had a stroke of luck today when we ran into a local man by the name of Demitrio. Demitrio was an enormous help back in 2009, helping us gain access to Aricoma and the hills beyond. This year he was all smiles and quickly ushered us into the mayor´s office, where Kurt explained (in his superior spanish) what we were doing and the objectives of our project. Now, with the town´s  blessing and a signed, official-looking letter in hand, we´re about to head off to our camp at 4600 m on the shore of Aricoma.

Gordon sawing plastic pipes on the roof of our hostel in Crucero

This morning we also made our final gear acquisitions – some plastic piping to transport sediment cores back to the US for analysis. These we had to cut into sections with a small hacksaw and then split in half, a delicate and quite tiring job at this altitude, but necessary. Now, vamos a trabajar!

Gordon

Science for the Planet: In these short video explainers, discover how scientists and scholars across the Columbia Climate School are working to understand the effects of climate change and help solve the crisis.
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