1/4/26
Arrival into Valdivia, Chile, was a relatively easy process. After landing, we made our way to the Universidad Austral de Chile where our gear was being staged for the field. I am thankful to Zonge International and Dr. Chris Kratt of UNR for providing me with the instruments needed to accomplish this fieldwork, and I am grateful to Ian and the three UNR undergraduate students who brough the equipment down from Reno. This will be my first time personally working with the Zen systems, and I feel some nerves about getting started, but I am confident in my abilities to troubleshoot and work through problems.
I knew that the logistics behind 20 people camping for 15 nights was a lot, but it did not fully hit me until I saw the amount of gear (personal and scientific) that needed to be helicoptered in. Most of this volume was simply the food we would need out there.
After getting organized, a couple of the graduate students went on an adventure through Valdivia to find something to eat. We found a place where we got a beer and what was probably the worst meal I had the entire time I was in Chile, but after a 12-hour travel day, I could have eaten anything and been happy. Although it was getting a little late, the sun was still out, so we decided to wander along the river for a while. We watched a magician for some time and met some locals, pictured below.
1/5/26
We stayed one night in Anticura before officially beginning the field season. We split into two groups to leave Valdivia, one in a large 15-person van and the other in a pickup truck. It was extremely foggy that day, which meant there was no view to see during the 2.5 hour drive.
Due to a flat tire, there was a slight delay in the arrival of the truck team. This gave the rest of us time to settle into the cabins and explore a bit. A couple of us went on a short hike and got to see what should have been a impressive river with waterfalls, but snowfall had been low the previous year, making the river more of a small stream.
During this hike, we made first contact with what would become the most annoying bug I have ever interacted with: the coliguacho or tabano, which are essentially large horse flies (up to 2 cm in length!!!). They never left us alone in the field and were slow enough that it became a game to knock them out of the air with your hands, rite in the rain, or a shovel… The only thing that seemed to help was when it was rainy and cool outside.
After the truck team arrived, we had a logistics meeting where we ironed out some important safety information and discussed how tomorrow will go with the helicopter/beginning to deploy some of the scientific instruments.
1/6/26
The campsite was about a 10-minute flight from Anticura. We are stayed between Cordon Caulle and Puyehue, next to the 2011 lava flow. The spot was central to both our drinking water source and the laccolith but was far enough away from the areas that are still venting heat. It was still rather foggy on the volcano, which I thought added to the amazement of seeing the landscape for the first time. One thing that Google Earth and photos do not fully capture is the amount of ash that was depositied after the 2011 eruption and the sharp transition from lush jungle to barren, sandy land.
Before landing, our helicopter pilot told us, “Welcome to the Moon” and I could not have agreed more.
MT volunteered to help deploy the DAS cable on the laccolith. We arrived around noon and began trenching the cable. Our shovels were not ideal, which made it a somewhat difficult process, but it was exciting to be out there on the first day. We worked for a couple of hours, burying around 500m of a 2 km line, and then headed to camp to set up our tents. Trenching the cable was hard work, and I gained a great deal of respect for those who do this regularly.
After the clouds disappeared, the weather turned warm, which increased dust levels as the ash heated up. There was limited shade on the volcano, which made some of the hotter days more challenging, but even on the warmest days it still felt nice because of the wind.
Overall, it was a good day, and I was looking forward to getting out there to begin deploying the MT instruments.
1/7/26 – 1/9/26
The first three days could all be described using one word: frustrating.
This was my first time working with Zonge International equipment, and there was a learning curve that was not helped by being completely remote and having to connect a Starlink to communicate meaningfully with people. Our first hurdle was the batteries. Unfortunately, because I arrived the day before we went into the field, I could not test some of the equipment, and this allowed two bad car batteries to be brought out with us. I was able to figure this out rather quickly, but we would not be able to get a replacement until the mid-trip resupply. Thankfully, the electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) team had an extra lithium-ion battery that we “borrowed” for the rest of the trip, and we were able to get moving. After sorting out the battery problems, the next hurdle was more instrument-specific and determining the proper way to deploy the instruments and get data from the receivers. I am extremely thankful to Giacobe Moe of Zonge International for responding to my, truthfully, frantic, InReach messages and emails. I was making a simple mistake, but once it was fixed, we began moving forward after the 9th.
These few days were on the warmer side, but it still felt better than an Atlanta summer… The ash was extremely annoying, as it got everywhere and is not too fun to breathe in. During these days, and while I was waiting for responses from people, Ian and I did our best to be helpful to other teams that were near camp. Specifically, we helped the geomorphology team. Seeing the launch and flight of their new drone was super cool and I am looking forward to seeing what they got out of their flights. I spent a little time helping the magnetics team recover the instruments they deployed during the 2025 field trip.
Before coming into the field, I was skeptical about the food situation, but I was genuinely impressed by Thomas, Camilla, and Benjamin. Breakfasts were simple, with the choice of bread, oatmeal, or granola with peanut butter, Nutella, and different jams. There was a lot of bread that was purchased (which means we ate a lot of stale bread). We mainly had hallullas and marraquetas, even stale they were so good. For lunches, each team was allowed a bread, fruit (apples, kiwis, nectarines, pears, etc), and vegetable (cucumber, pepper, tomato, avocado) per person and 1 protein (salmon or tuna), a bean (white, black, garbanzo, peas, or corn) and a sleeve of cookies. We would normally make a little salad using all our food, which was refreshing in the field and worked well. Admittedly, on the days we could not make it back to camp for lunch I would eat everything separately, but Ian was committed the salad and ate a couple meals out of our shovel. The ash is excellent for “cleaning” dishes. It absorbs any oils, which means cleaning bowls and utensils every day involved scooping up some ash, rubbing it in, and wiping it out. All of this is to so say that using a shovel as a bowl was just about the same as using our regular bowls…
Our other meals included a pre-dinner soup and dinners. I was skeptical of the soups before making it into the field, but they quickly became one of my favorite parts of the day (especially on the colder days). They were warm and salty, and perfect for holding us over until dinner was served. Dinners were always a hit. Thomas and others kept things interesting with meats, vegetables, and starches they used. I appreciated the effort that was put into having vegetarian options, because it made me feel more comfortable expressing my dietary restrictions. One of the coolest parts of the food was our “oven” aka a graben that was actively venting heat and used to cook our meats during the day.
Most nights, someone would build a fire that we would eat our dinners around. This was crucial because it definitely got cold once the sun went below the lava flow. It was impossible to have a fire without marshmallows, and we were able to get some during our resupply, which made the fire even better. Besides the marshmallows, another highlight was the victory chocolate and wine that we had every night. All of these sweet treats were perfect at the end of the days and helped keep people happy.
1/10/26
This was the first day we successfully deployed a site (thanks mainly to the ERT battery). We decided to begin staging and scouting for the next sites so we could just move the battery the following day. Ian and I were ready for a change from the view we had of just rolling hills between Cordon Caulle and Puyehue, so we decided to head towards the center of the laccolith and closer to the 2011 vent. This gave us more to look at, and after staging the next site, we left our packs and hiked along Cordon Caulle. I had so many “pinch me” moments, because I was doing the things I have always dreamed of doing simply by walking around an active volcano. We could see and feel the heat coming out of the vents, and the rock hounding was fun (all pumice and obsidian, but still cool).
1/11/26 – 1/12/26
The 11th was the first rainy day of the field season. We were able to install and stage a site before the rain arrived, so the day was not wasted. My tent flooded slightly but it was not too bad. It looked like an entirely different place after the rain, but the rain helped keep the ash down for a couple of days, which was nice. Beyond the ash, the rain eliminated the tabanos, and temperatures remained cooler for a couple of days after.
The 12th was productive. We pulled a site on the laccolith and then staged another on the other side of the lava flow near the stream that we were getting our drinking water from. The walk to and from the stream was one of the worst walks of the entire field experience. On a map, it did not look too bad, but the reality of walking through a large drainage on small- to medium-sized pumice pieces made it not fun at all. Without gear, the hike took around 40 minutes, but with weight it could take up to 1.5 hours.
Seeing running water for the first time in about a week was euphoric. Ian and I dropped our packs immediately to dunk our heads into the water. The stream is filtered through the pumice and tastes fresh. Scouting went well, and we brought back about 20 L of drinking water to camp.
1/13/26
The morning was spent continuing our work, including picking up the last site on the laccolith and starting up the one by the stream. In the afternoon, a large portion of us went down to the hot springs. The only downside was that the walk back to camp was almost entirely uphill. The springs were still beautiful and felt amazing. Beyond a short break, the point of this trip was to resupply and bring in the remaining two people who were joining our group.
This was the first day I felt truly tired, but the little rest helped immensely. This was one of the first nights I found myself outside of my tent in the middle of the night, and I wish I had done it sooner. The night sky was incredible to look at, with views of the Milky Way.
