When is the snow going to melt? The alpine plants I study will not begin seriously growing until the ground is bare and the soil is unfrozen. I want to examine how the microclimate around these plants changes through this transition and into the growing season, but it’s hard to know what’s going on from…

A stormy few days – snow at high elevation and heavy rain lower down. I have abandoned my alpine project until conditions improve, and have temporarily refocused on a low-elevation aspen study. It proved to be an interesting day in the field, especially after helping a few fellow researchers who were also caught out by…