Alaska Volcano Observatory - Summer 1997 Field Operations

Tales of wind and rain on Pavlof and Shishaldin volcanoes, Alaska
Milton Garces

by Milton A. Garc�s, July 1997

Forty knot winds and horizontal rain in False Pass--a mere 6 on the King Cove Scale (KICS) of miserable weather. John Benoit and I just came back from installing a seismic station on the north side of Unimak Island, the last of six stations deployed around Shishaldin volcano, Alaska. A southeasterly storm is hitting Unimak, first of the Aleutian Islands, and we still have a chance to reach a higher level on the KICS; a 10 corresponds to 80 knot winds, horizontal rain, and zero visibility. Steve McNutt and Guy Tytgat devised the KICS based on their cherished memories of King Cove in 1996--the base for the installation of the Pavlof seismic network. Some of their fond remembrances of KICS 8-10 conditions involve coffee being suctioned out of cups (cafe venturi), continuous vibration of plywood walls, and rain traveling vertically upwards after hitting any unmovable obstruction. Steve, Guy, and John are all veterans of the Pavlof expedition, and I patiently listen to enhanced reconstructions of their memories as they lament the lack of adversity and suffering in our present mission. And it is our present mission which I hereby recount, starting to write eight days into our expedition and in the midst of an Aleutian storm.

After the usual flurry of activity, flinging papers about and keeping promises made long ago, our crew departs from Fairbanks, Alaska on Monday, July 7. We are all affiliated with the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO); Steve, our expedition leader, John, graduate student, and I, post doc, travel to Cold Bay (hereafter renamed Way Cool Bay), on the tip of the Alaska Peninsula. Jerry Painter, our contact in Way Cool Bay, receives us at the airport and ferries us to the FAA housing. The commerce in Way Cool Bay centers around Pen Air and the airport --a large airstrip constructed by the military during WW2, large enough to land a DC8 sideways. Way Cool Bay has been compared by insensitive souls to a nuclear waste site, but in reality it has a fine shop with the most complete combat knife supply I've encountered outside of Los Angeles. Our pilot, Bill Springer, Purple Heart decorated war hero, now with Maritime Helicopters, is the same pilot we had on Makushin volcano in July 1996 when Andy Lockhart, Bob Hammond and I installed the seismic network there. Andy and Bob, country boys from Montana, enlightened me on the wisdom of country music lyrics and educated me on the health benefits of Spam.

Our mission in our present expedition is to deploy a seismic and acoustic volcano monitoring system at Shishaldin Volcano, Unimak island, and to upgrade some of the electronic equipment at the Pavlof Volcano seismic network in the Alaska Peninsula. As an add-on project, I will make some Global Positioning System (GPS) recordings at selected benchmarks to observe which way the continents have drifted. Tomorrow, John will go directly to False Pass to check on our equipment for Shishaldin and to commence the assembly of our seismic station huts. A description of these huts is in order.

It blows hard and cold in the Cook Inlet and Aleutian Islands. There are no trees; where vegetated, the territory is mainly tundra. And some of the most intriguing, curious, and largest land mammals roam Unimak Island and mainland Alaska--brown bears. Volcano monitoring equipment--seismometers, antennas, cables--in these regions have been bent, disfigured, fried by lightning, blown off, chewed off, ripped apart, frozen, and buried by rime ice, volcanic ash and pyroclastic flows.

It's tricky business to keep all equipment dry and intact, and to this effect 4x4x5 cubic foot fiberglass containers have been designed to house all the electronic and telemetry components. Seismic instruments are buried in the ground, with their connection cables brought into the hut. Pressure sensors are mounted on the hut walls, and vented to the atmosphere through holes drilled into the huts. Empty, these huts weigh approximately 300-400 lbs, and need to be slung by helicopter to their final installation site. There, we partly bury the huts, tie them down with guy wires, and pile rocks around them to prevent them from flying off with the first storm. We then install solar panels, batteries, sensors, and electronics, and perform ritual sacrifices to the telemetry gods. If all goes well, we receive the uninterrupted data in Fairbanks that empowers us to prophesy volcanic eruptions.

On July 8, Steve and I visit all the Pavlof stations south of the volcano (five total). On the flight there, I see my first wolf, stark white against the green and red of the tundra, watching us calmly as we stream away with 'Great Purpose.' We had a perfectly clear view of Pavlof volcano, and decided to fly around the crater. Pavlof volcano began its most recent eruptive activity in September of 1996, and continued into 1997. At the time of this writing, Pavlof is dormant, but it may erupt again at any time. We circled the volcano in an upwards spiral, observing that most of the glacial ice was still intact. At a distance, the Pavlof cone appears black, which led to the belief that the glacial ice had been melted by volcanic heat.

Closer inspection showed that the dark coloring of the volcano was due to ashes covering the snow, but fiercely blue glacial ice could be seen through gnashing crevasses. Pavlof Sister, adjacent to Pavlof, showed an ash concentration gradient, darker towards its base. The only parts where the ice seemed to be missing corresponded to a rust-red region where lava had recently flowed.Approaching the peak of Pavlof, we observed sulfur deposits within and around the perimeter of the jagged crater walls. The crater at the very top and slightly north of Pavlof was filled in by debris and tephra; only remnant steam remained around the crater, and no active degassing could be seen around the buried vent.

Back in Way Cool Bay, Jerry Painter (our contact and the weatherman at the airport) took me to the GPS site, which would otherwise have been quite difficult to find in the featureless, flat tundra. After reading about the camper in the area that was consumed by a hungry bear--only his belt and knife were found--I was a bit nervous about the shaggies, and loaded my 12-gauge boomstick every time I walked away from the car or helicopter. Not that we saw any close to our field sites, but it's better to be a live Cheechako than a dead one. That evening, we observe the local wildlife at the bar at Way Cool Bay. The cook's helper, who went down Frosty Creek in an inner tube, entertains a crowd of three, while our nose-ring clad bartenderess offers us microwaved popcorn and bean burritos. The bar burned to the ground the year before--Jerry helped extinguish it--and the new one has a large mounted tropical fish in place of the traditional caribou head. Next day (July 9) we receive our final seismic crew member, Guy Tytgat (Mr. Nice Guy) and take him directly from the arriving Reeve plane into the helicopter to go to service station PN7, on the north side of Pavlof. In contrast to the other five huts we checked, which were in excellent shape, this site has a shattered solar panel and the east side of the hut is pitted and abraded. Either the wind consistently blows very hard at this site, or, as Guy hypothesized, a pyroclastic flow accelerated the hut's erosion. We installed a calibrated pressure sensor at this site in hopes of recording the direct pressure wave made by explosions. Hopefully, Pavlof will erupt again this fall, as it has done so before in apparent agreement with the McNutt toothpaste-tube hypothesis of oceanic triggering. Close to finishing the installation, the cloud ceiling dropped and we were in the fog. We heard the helicopter, and radioed to tell the pilot that we'd be hiking down the hill. We carried about 200 lbs worth of equipment about 500 vertical feet to a clearing, and as we radioed the helicopter to try to land, the ceiling dropped some more. A few hundred feet more and we directed the helicopter through the fog and flying dust to pick us up. The weather deteriorated further as we returned into Way Cool Bay.

In the afternoon of July 10, we moved our operation to False Pass, Unimak Island. False Pass is a quaint fishing village on the eastern side of Unimak Island. The pass between the Alaska Peninsula and Unimak Island is quite shallow, and thus large land mammals have made the swim across the pass. The island, where most of the land is a wilderness preserve, is populated with brown bear, caribou, wolves, deer, and numerous fowl, including swans, ducks, bald eagles, and gulls. The town of False Pass is located in a glaciated valley, with a direct view to Round Top Mountain. John heard from a local who heard from an elder that two generations ago Round Top used to have the Aleut name for "Roof Top," and that a large explosion may have demolished its top to its present round shape. Ikatan Peninsula, attached to the southeastern part of Unimak by a thin strand of land, is said to have been disconnected at that time, so that the local Aleuts used to kayak between the islands. These stories may be investigated by future geological studies. The population of False Pass consists of 70 people, about half of them Aleut. It is a 'damp' town, so that you cannot purchase alcohol but you can bring it in with you. Peter Pan fisheries is the center of industry, and provides a general store, a hardware shop, and a cafeteria. Meals take place at 7 AM, 12 PM, and 5 PM, and short breaks at 10 AM and 3 PM, sharp. Loraine, our meal director, will serve your plate and try to coax you into eating as much as humanly possible. We have 30 minutes to eat our meal, and we try to comply with this schedule, lest we incur the wrath of Loraine. The food is quite rich and nutritious, appropriate fare for fishermen who spend the day at sea. For us genteel folk who only spend the day herding electrons, digging meter-deep holes in tephra, screwing down bolts, and pounding stakes atop some God-forsaken cinder cone, the meals are almost excessive. We usually skip breakfast because of the unwholesome morning hour, but the 10 AM break usually provides ample nourishment for the afternoon.

July 11 welcomed us with rainy and cloudy weather.

John, who had been alone and dry in False Pass and eager for some action, dropped batteries at the Brown Peak site (BRPK). Throughout the day, we prepared electronics, made an inventory of our equipment, and made liberal use of electrical tape--duct tape, as I rapidly discovered, was not favored by our team (something to do with sticky messes). July 12 was a radiant day, with the whole south of the island perfectly clear. We slung all four huts to the south of the island. The hut slinging operation is quite interesting, and worthy of description.The huts have eight eye bolts, four on top and four on the base. The four bolts near the base are used for securing the huts to the ground with guy wires, and the upper four bolts are used to attach the roof of the hut to four pieces of rope, which meet in a large shackle. The shackle is connected to a long metal wire with a large steel hook at the end. A separate rope with a tire at one end is secured to one of the lower bolts adjacent to the door of the hut. To sling a hut, all ropes are secured and the helicopter takes off, checks the wind direction, and hovers about 8 feet off the ground. Wearing a helicopter helmet, Steve runs with the hook and attaches it to the belly of the hovering chopper, enveloped by a screaming sphere of dust, sound, and spinning metal. The wire slowly tightens and we hand-direct the mass of metal, rope, and fiberglass so that there are no snags. The ~500 lb behemoth, consisting of hut, equipment, and tire, rises up into the air to be deposited at the chosen site. The tire acts as a drogue, which prevents the hut from whirling like a dervish and breaking the lines. Curiously enough, we saw bears on the island that were bigger and heavier than the huts.

After slinging the first two huts, John and I moved in to emplace them. This activity consists of concocting the bear medicine (alternating 00 shot with slugs), digging in the hut and seismometers, securing the hut with guy wires, installing solar panels, wiring the batteries, and making any connections necessary. Setting the signal levels and testing the sending and receiving frequencies was the Guy's task as our electronics specialist. On the flight there, we had excellent views of Round Top, Isanotsky, and Shishaldin mountains. Viewed from the south, Isanotsky displays two precipitous volcanic necks emerging from the glaciated summit. While emplacing a seismic site at its base, we observed ice breaking off a hanging glacier and avalanching down a sheer cliff, sliding over 500 ft waterfalls emerging from the base of the glaciers. At solar noon (~2 PM because of the artifact of Alaska Standard Time) it was so hot we briefly considered wearing duct tape loincloths. Four hours later, we moved to Brown Peak, where we had completely unobstructed views of Shishaldin and Isanotsky peaks.

Shishaldin is a 9414 ft. glaciated stratovolcano, as close to conical symmetry as nature would permit. It has erupted at least two times in the last two years and will most likely erupt again within the next few years. A steam plume flowed horizontally like a flag from the white-robed summit vent, and dissipated into the arctic sky. We had shockingly clear views of the whole south, east, and west of the Aleutian chain and the Alaska Peninsula, and could see and hear the waves pounding on the Pacific shore. Four hours more of work, and we headed back for dinner, flying high over a herd of caribou on the black slopes. We could not figure out what these creatures were doing around the cinder cones, but then again, they probably wonder what's our game. Back in the Pass, Loraine had moose-sized T-bone steaks for dinner, and I ate half of one. Two Aleut fishermen were dining at the same table, and Loraine commented that she told young hopefuls that real fishermen ate two steaks. Thus coaxed, the fishermen ate two steaks each, taking longer and longer breaths in between bites. She presented a third steak, but they didn't bite.

On July 13, one hut (SSLN) was slung to the north side of the island. John and I emplaced two other huts on the south (SSLS) and west (SSLW) of Shishaldin. SSLW was experiencing some strong northerly winds, and as soon as we were dropped off we were buried in the fog. We worked in the cold winds with zero visibility for four hours, and had to walk down about 500 feet until we reached a clearing where the helicopter could land. We went directly to SSLS, and en route we passed through the wake of the volcano, where we could see from below the lenticular cloud atop Shishaldin. As we landed into SSLS, we observed that the wind was now coming from the east and we could see a strip of clear weather southwest of the mountain, corresponding to the wind shadow of the volcano. We worked for four more hours in the mountain's wake, and as we were close to finishing, the deck came down on us and we had to hike down again for the helicopter pickup. When we finally arrived back at the base, a late dinner, prearranged by our colleagues, was most welcome.

The next day, we slung the last hut north of Isanotsky (ISNN), and John and Steve emplaced it. Guy and I (mostly Guy) set up the electronics and signal levels on ISPK. I was getting a bad reputation for bringing in the clouds, so I was glad we didn't get socked in for a change (never mind all the nice weather we'd had before, that the bad weather started after the arrival of Guy, and that Guy and Steve had to camp out in the tundra the day after I left. Do I see a trend?). I choppered back to Way Cool Bay to change the power arrangement on the GPS site and to deliver and pick up equipment. Then during lunch, Kim, the 20-year-old local girl who camouflages as a boy at the Grease Shop Diner, doing construction work digging wells, and driving heavy machinery, aids our digestion with bear stories from the region. After the return to False Pass, I installed a GPS (PANK) site on the southeastern tip of the Ikatan Peninsula, a bit inland from Cape Pankof. At 9 PM, the weather has cleared completely, and we have a view of jagged cliffs along the southern Unimak coastline, illuminated from the north.

A storm moved in on the night of July 15th. At 3 AM, I was awoken by the vibration of the room walls and the whistling of the partly open window. The morning greeted us with brisk winds from the southwest, and after their deterioration we decided to try to emplace the last hut. Steve set up the electronics at ISNN, north of Isanotski Peak, while John and I worked at SSLN, north of Shishaldin volcano, where we installed a second pressure sensor. The flight to station SSLN was quite memorable, as Bill flew over a knife-edged hill, a downdraft spun the helicopter around and propelled us down the hill as if we were rafting down a river. The north side of the island is flatter and marshier, and has more wildlife. We were fortunate that the volcano made a wind shadow right at the station site, so that we were a bit protected from the clouds and rain. We worked through mist and rain for four more hours - we had a thermometer with us, and the temperature oscillated between 40 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit during the installation. While waiting for departure, we could observe a well- delineated region a few miles east of our site, along a radial line from Shishaldin. In that region, which resembled a stationary, vertically-oriented cloud, the visibility dropped drastically (a few hundred meters). As we flew into this zone and hit 50 knot winds head on, it became clear that it demarcated the edge of the wake of the volcano. We flew close to the ground to get lower-velocity winds. Huge abandoned caribou racks, powerful primitive monuments to the wild and untamed nature of this land, reached up from the tundra. A pair of wolves, white figures in a crisp blur of motion glide over a background of emerald green. One of them stops to wait for his/her partner who has vanished into the tall grasses. A bear naps in a narrow, and a sow and two diminutive cubs regard us with curiosity. We are forced to fly along the coast of the Bering Sea to keep away from the wind, and it takes us 45 minutes to complete a trip that would only take 15 minutes on a windless day. As the conditions worsen, we decide to call it a day. We have emplaced the Shishadin seismic network in four days, and we take a well-deserved rest while we wait for the storm to abate.

July 16 was a relatively restful day, as we sat in the eye of the storm with low visibility but little wind. I did GPS measurements on the NW tip of the Ikatan Peninsula (THOM), from where I saw the shoaling corduroy lines of a swell that pounded the Aleutian shore. The view of the heaving surf chewing on this desolate volcanic shore brought back memories of many a perfect session in the foggy and cold California morning winter surf, and triggered foreshadowings of my new life to begin in Hawaii. Except this is summer here, and the waters are still cold enough to kill you in less than two minutes. In the afternoon, taking advantage of the low winds, we slung the last hut to Way Cool Bay. We rested most of the evening, when the local pastor, a substitute for the local priest who was getting married, came to visit us. A native of Atlanta, he lamented that he could no longer walk into town spewing fire and brimstone, shoot all the bottles off the bar, and say "Things are going to run a bit different from now on. See you in church." With jovial nostalgia, he added, "The good old days are gone."

A bit more wind on the 17th, and Steve and Guy went to Way Cool Bay to emplace the last hut. John and I stayed behind to "guard the fuel tanks"--our term for hanging around and waiting for good weather. By the afternoon the northeasterly wind had picked up as we received the trailing side of the low pressure system. Our augmented crew arrived from Way Cool Bay, and we bailed on installing another GPS site because the pass between Unimak and the Alaska Peninsula was acting as a giant venturi which funneled the winds right into the Ikatan Peninsula, where we had to go.

On the afternoon of the 18th the weather had improved sufficiently for me to remove the GPS sites at the Ikatan Peninsula and to place a site on the northeastern tip of Unimak (KATY). The flight was interesting, as the south side was clearing nicely in the wake of the mountains, affording mist-shrouded views of Isanotski and Shishaldin peaks. When flying to install the north station, we ran into a wall of rain--a belt of precipitation triggered by the drastic change in the topography of the island. Yet, further north of this belt, it was just the usual horizontal fog which we've gotten used to encountering in the Aleutians. After installing the last GPS site amidst tall, wild celery and marsh grasses in a forlorn wind-and-rain-battered ridge, I gladly exchanged the role of "fuel security" with Guy and John, who went to the south side to complete the electronic installations for the huts. That afternoon, Chris Nye and Peter Stelling (AVO) arrived to weave their geological tales, and that evening we had a full house at the AVO headquarters/computer room/bar that is John's room. Due to structural failure of the AVO HQ's floor, John's bed was experiencing subduction into the Aleutian crust, and I fear the popularity of his room had a way of accelerating the subduction rate.

Next morning, Steve and I flew back to Way Cool Bay, Steve to complete some work, and I to return to Fairbanks. The bulk of the seismic network installation was completed, the pressure sensors were installed, and the essential GPS measurements were performed. We flew over the multiple crisscrossing paths of giant brown bears; one lumbered from the tall grasses and regarded us with apparent bemusement. To bid us farewell, a lone wolf stood by a river shore watching us with intense detachment. We sped away as he shrank into a white, vibrant point that was devoured by the tundra and the fog.