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His Eyes on the Ice
Back in Colombia 2021
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INTRODUCTION
His Eyes on the Ice
In 2021, we returned to Colombia to check on our time-lapse cameras and to work once more alongside glaciologist Jorge Luis Ceballos. Through the long COVID years, when almost no one could reach the ice, these cameras had been his only eyes on the glaciers, and now it was time to see what they had witnessed.
Discover the expedition
Back in Colombia 2021
By 2021, it had become important for us to get back to Colombia, both to check on our time-lapse cameras and to make sure they weren't running into any problems, and to work alongside Jorge Luis Ceballos once again. But this was far from simple. We were still deep in the COVID years, and for the best part of two years it had been very difficult for Jorge to get permission to go up to the glaciers at all. For long stretches, our time-lapse cameras were his only eyes on the ice, quietly keeping watch while no one could reach them. Then, finally, Jorge was granted special permission to head back into the mountains, and he kindly offered us the chance to come with him. The plan was to join him again in the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy, to check on the time-lapse camera and repair anything that needed fixing, and then to make our way back to the little Conejeras glacier on Santa Isabel.
It was wonderful to be reunited with one of the time-lapse cameras we had first installed back in 2019, and Jorge told us just how useful these cameras had been during all those long stretches when it was simply impossible to set foot on the glaciers because of COVID. This time, we decided to move the camera closer to the action: closer to the ice, to a spot where the glacier moves very quickly down the mountain and where blocks of ice come tumbling down. I felt so grateful to be doing this work with Jorge, and also with Gina, a brilliant up-and-coming young glaciologist from Colombia.
Once that mission was complete, we made our way back to the very first glacier we ever laid eyes on in Colombia, in Los Nevados National Park. This time we said our goodbyes to Jorge and his team, and it was just us, together with a local guide we'd hired to come with us into the park. Our goal was to find the time-lapse camera we had set up two years earlier, looking straight out at the Conejeras glacier. We couldn't quite believe how much the glacier had already changed in that short time. We spent a good while there, taking photographs and documenting its retreat, before heading back to the camera to make sure everything was still working as it should. The glacier was split in two. New vegetation was already growing in places the glacier has just retreated from. The speed of the melting was staggering.
This time around, we put together a new team. We were lucky to be joined by Vivien Brenckmann and Mathilde Candela, alongside Nina, Antoine and myself, and we were excited to discover a new corner of the Cocuy glaciers together and, above all, to check on our time-lapse cameras. We began with a few days in the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy o Güicán. We spent the first couple of days acclimatising around the magnificent Pulpito Del Diablo, and then it was time to go and check on the cameras.
We left the glacier with our hearts feeling heavy, not knowing whether, the next time we came to Colombia — if there ever was a next time — the glacier would still be there at all. We had this sinking feeling that something once so giant was now truly on its last legs. And we couldn't stop thinking about Jorge, about Gina, and about the future of not only glaciology in Colombia, but of all these incredibly precious ecosystems, including the páramos we were so keen to see one last time before leaving. But once again, we felt nothing but gratitude — grateful to have been welcomed back to Colombia just before Christmas. Our most enormous thanks go to Jorge Luis Ceballos at IDEAM, to Gina, and to Marcela and her whole team at Cumbres Blancas. We always learn so much whenever we're in Colombia, and we feel truly privileged to be ambassadors for these tropical glaciers and just how much they matter.
