Aufeis

For a few weeks when I got here, I kept hearing people talk about when it might be good to take a first trip to see the off-ice. I just nodded along and took my first opportunity to go see it, which is when I learned that it is actually called aufeis, a German word for this particular type of ice formation, which you can read all about here.

And it was pretty interesting! Afterwards I talked with someone who had fallen through the top of the ice one season and I realized it was maybe not safe for us to have been walking on it like this. But we were following the footsteps of other Toolik people who had already been out there earlier in the day, so we were relatively assured we'd be okay.

I'm really glad we did walk on it though, because the meltwater wasn't too high yet and we were able to actually climb down INTO the part that was melted out, which was SUPER cool.

A couple weeks later I went back to see how the melting had progressed, and it was clear I would not be walking on the ice or in the stream any longer, as things had REALLY progressed.

I'll have to go once more at some point to see how it looks when most of the melting is melted...