Glacier vacationing is out-of-this-world cool
Travel company lets others experience giant ice cubes.
What’s it like to live in a far-off place most of us see only on a vacation? Foreign Correspondence is an interview with someone who has lived in a spot you may want to visit.
Sarah Aciego, 38, is a geology and glaciology professor at the University of Michigan. Last year, she founded Big Chill Adventures (www.bigchill adventure.com) — an Arctic travel company — with her mother, a professional photographer.
Q.
A. As a scientist, I go to really incredible places, a lot off-the-beaten-track, to get samples that are unique. Having my mom with me made me realize how incredible those places are: It’s about sharing with more than the scientific community.
Q. How much time do you spend in those remote places? A. Two or three months a year, on a glacier or near one. In Greenland, I’m either camping or staying at a hostel. That’s usually between May and October; in Antarctica, I go during our winter because it’s summer down there.
Q.
A. It’s like being on another planet. For me, being on a glacier — when there’s water on top, or when you’re looking into crevasses — is like stand- ing on a giant diamond, with different refracting surfaces returning incredible blues and some greens. These are really intense blues you can’t see any other place.
It’s really quiet except when the wind blows — or if the glacier is calving and you hear the creaks and groans. The smells are different: The humidity is so low you can’t really smell anything.
Often times, you can go into a glacier at its toe, where there are caves and tremendous rivers coming out that are 10 or 15 miles long. In the ice caves, you can hear the whole glacier throbbing and creaking. When there are cracks, it sounds like gunshots.
Q.
A. Antarctica is definitely more like being on an ice cube: There’s no vegetation; nothing green. The colors are those of rock, ice and some snow. There’s little wildlife — penguins and seals. In Alaska and Greenland, even though it’s cold, at least there’s moss, caribou, musk ox and birds. We don’t usually go where there are polar bears.
In Alaska, you may see mountain goats and trees; this helps you determine the size of a mountain. In Antarctica, where you don’t have any of that, your depth and height perceptions are missing.
Q. A. That’s a really big difference. In Antarctica, there are tourists and scientists, but nobody lives there permanently. In the Arctic, there’s a long history of native populations. You sense it has been settled in a way for a long time.
Q.
A. Yes. But conditions are so cold that tourists don’t go there in winter, when it’s dark. You have to get a special psychological clearance to stay in Antarctica over its winter.
Q.
A. In Antarctica, there’s a little valley several miles wide and hundreds of miles long. It’s next to a glacier and has its own small glacier. It also has sandstone rock formations — and one of them looks like the Sphinx.
In Greenland, it would be this place next to an ice sheet: It has this lake that small icebergs fall into. The area next to the lake is really green — tundra, but with big arctic bushes. What’s really cool is when a musk ox herd drinks at the lake and the animals rub their belly fur on the bushes. There’s all kinds of interaction bet ween wildlife and biology.
Q. A. On a scientific trip, about four. For tourism, about six tourists plus me and a photographer. That lets you use a helicopter or four-wheel truck. For a scientific expedition, we usually camp and have a lot of more gear for collecting samples and measurements. For tours, we travel lighter and stay in real hotels with showers and hot chocolate and those kind of things.
Q.
A. When I do, I like Thailand. It’s hot. And I like the food.