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The weather couldn't have been any better for a full day of sampling in the field! Today's agenda included picking up our spider prey pitfall cups, taking soil samples from our mesocosms, collecting spiders for our high density plots, and processing our soil samples. Today marked an important

Well, short of calling on Allen O'Bannon, expert mountaineer and instructor of the Arctic Field Training class for CPS, encountering a bear on your own calls for good training and pre-planning. CPS stands for CH2MHill Polar Services, which is the logistics provider for the National Science

Allen O'Bannon has years of experience working for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), five years as a safety instructor and mountaineer in Antarctica and a summer with Polar Field Services in Greenland. He has a wealth of backcountry experience, and has also served as a River Guideand a

It was time to get back to work after a relaxing day off. Once again, we got to spend a beautiful morning in the field! We placed 5 screen-topped pitfall traps in each of our mesocosms to capture spider prey. The screens allow the prey that spiders feed upon to fall through, but are too fine to

At the end of most days I find myself in the dining hall. It's the social hub of camp, warm, a great place to write, and has a spectacular view of the Brooks Range. Many nights as I'm winding down, two people are drinking coffee and just starting their day. Trevor and Adeline head out to the field

An Inadvertent Experiment In my home state of Colorado, there is an experiment that hikers do inadvertently almost every time they climb to the top of a mountain – they finish and seal the water bottle they were drinking – trapping a bottle of low-pressure air inside. Then, when they bring it

According to one online dictionary, respiration is the act or process of inhaling and exhaling, such as breathing. How can an ecosystem breathe, you ask? It's really quite complicated, and also quite simple. For the big picture, think of all the plants and all the animals going through their

Once again the midnight sun encouraged some after-work play last night. While walking out of a writing session in the dining hall, I was told which team I was on. As others walked by, they too were assigned a team. In a matter of minutes we had assembled nearly 20 people to play t-ball. Our

Ernst Schmied was born in Bern, Switzerland in 1924. He loved climbing mountains and went on climbing trips often. He scaled several mountains in Europe and Asia. On one of his expeditions, he met a girl named Dora whom he later married. Her brother would accompany them later, on their Everest