We decided to organize this field party in order to test some new drilling equipment, to update some old one, and to decide which routine to use to gain coring efficiency on a coming expedition in Antarctica.
4 A.M, we leave Brussels on a minibus rent at university, with direction Tsanfleuron Glacier in Switzerland. This glacier is somewhat convenient for our purpose, since equipment can be lifted to the glacier surface by telepheric and we have a good deal in having the opportunity to live in facilities from Glacier 3000, the company that manages skiing and lifting in the area.
The minibus was fine in the sense that there was enough room to store our 400 kg of equipment. The guy from the university garage just told us that there was a small problem with 5th gear... If he didn't say more, we supposed we could trust him and the car. But we rapidly realized on the highway what was that small problem with the gear: it just cracked out whenever it was engaged! This is kind of bad news for such a long way, and we did actually not expect our testing field party to begin so soon. No time enough, however, to fix the gear box in a garage along the way, since we had strict appointments at the Swiss border. We then managed to simply force the gear in place with what we found the most appropriate in the car: a hard-bottom bottle of water... And it worked!
After more than ten hours of driving with tetanized left arm for the co-pilots and having passed Swiss Customs formalities, we finally arrived safe and sound at Les Diablerets village, Switzerland, just at the foot of Tsanfleuron Glacier.
Here we are, loading our 400kg equipment to test in the telepheric cabin.
Enjoying the view on the way up...
...particularly those tremendous geological calcareous structures...
...but seriously worrying about the weather to come...
On Day 2, equipment was loaded on a Pisten Bully and transported to the spotted testing point up glacier.
This point was chosen in the lower accumulation zone in order to get thin-grained ice in upper layers and test it with new drilling heads and barrels.
That first day of test was really harsh for us. Not only the weather was dreadful (worthy of polar conditions), but nothing in the equipment worked properly!
What a day what a day...
But this didn't pearce us that much. Tomorrow cannot be worse!
Back at Glacier3000, we worked a lot that evening, fixing and adjsuting stuffs... especially JP, who even forgot to finish his beer!...
Day 3. The weather was not so fine yet....
...but the team was ready!
We even had the nice surprise to be visited by the French olympic cross-country-sky team around our drilling site... That day could just be fine!
Indeed, we got more organized, fixed what had to be, and just drilled all the day...
...yeah, Drillators were in good shape!
Day 4. Time to move and find another drilling spot. Next one will be in the ablation zone, where much larger and harder crystals are expected.
New adjustments on the drill heads and barrels will thus have to be done.
By the way, JP had a dream last night: next drilling site will be... there...
Here we are, down glacier.
Though the core length was substantially shorter here than upstream, our drilling equipment worked nicely within large crystals.
Now that everything has been tested and we got a good overview of our equipment, let's go hiking a bit on those famous Tsanfleuron karsts...
On the way back up, we also stopped at some subglacial cavities at the lower margin of the glacier.
Some of the cavities there clearly show the deflection of ice flow past large obstacles at the bed of the glacier.
These cavities can also exhibit calcite precipitation flutes at the lee of bed obstacles.
Day 5. That's it for this field trip. Time to pack stuffs and get them back to our dear 5th-gearless minibus...
As good Belgians, we got some beer on terrasse.
Question to Thierry: "what do you think of Swiss beer?";
Answer: "do you really wanna know?!!"
What a trip what a trip...