One of the guides for our trip, Walter Metzke, brought his Phantom 4 drone, which we were able to use to get some aerial footage of our field site. We were able to do this for the penitente field located around 5200m, because we spent some extra acclimation time there. In these videos, Adam has… Read More

We’re all heading down the mountain! Around midday after staying at 5,550m, Walter, who is usually acclimated to these altitudes, exhibited symptoms of altitude sickness. As a precaution, I was sent down with him, since I had also exhibited a few mild symptoms. Unfortunately, I did not get to continue up the mountain, but luckily… Read More

Adam and I collected our first microbial samples and light measurements at 3400m yesterday. Today, we move up to 4000m for another sample collection and to camp higher than any of Colorado’s mountians. This will continue our acclimation process to prepare for the higher altitudes to come.… Read More

Permits to access Ojos del Salado are a complicated task that takes a few hours is Fiambala. While our guides handled that, we were able to sneak away to a local hot spring. We’d estimate the “aguas caliente” to be coming out of the rocks at about 70°C, and it quickly cools when exposed to… Read More

Welcome to Buenos Aires! We finished the first leg of our trip and arrived to a beautiful sunny day, a shocking 90°F. The 9hr flight gave us our first look at the Andes, as we flew over just after sunrise. We are too far from the city to get into town during our layover, so… Read More

Hello! I am Amanda Steckel and I am a Geology PhD student at CU Boulder. I work at LASP in Professor Brian Hynek’s group. My passion is space exploration and bridging the gap between science and engineering. Previously, I have spent several months working in Antarctica using Lidars to study how the different layers of… Read More