Alaska Science Forum: Searching for Microplastics on Denali

Scientists have found microplastics in every marine habitat in which they have looked, wrote researchers from the Ocean Conservancy. We inhale those particles and eat them along with our food and drink. Blue whales consume up to 10 million pieces of microplastic each day.

The whales—as well as we humans—get rid of most of that plastic, but 10 percent of what we eat remains with us. Researchers don’t know how much that harms us.

Jaramillo said he and Crisafi-Lurtsema’s goal is to find out more about microplastics—the ones wafting through the air and those left behind by Denali climbers who shed particles from petroleum-based gear and food containers.

“It’s not going to solve any problems, but it will give us a baseline of what the problem is,” Jaramillo says.

The Denali climb along the 17-mile West Buttress Route is a dream come true for Jaramillo, who grew up in Quito, Ecuador. He also spent time in New York City before getting accepted in UAF’s engineering program and traveling to Alaska last fall.

“It’s really crazy to think this is happening,” he said during a recent interview on the UAF campus. “It’s not even a year and I’m about to leave on a plane [for Kahiltna Glacier and the beginning of the climb at about 7,000 feet altitude]. I’ve dreamt about this since I was a baby and watched movies about Denali.”

Jaramillo climbed many high peaks in Ecuador with his father. Those included Cotopaxi, a 19,347-foot volcano, when he was 12 years old.

Things They Carried

Crisafi-Lurtsema grew up in Anchorage, climbing in the Chugach Mountains. He also bagged many of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks when he was recently a student at the Colorado School of Mines. He and Jaramillo, who met in a UAF class, have spent many hours in the mountains preparing for their Denali climb. They have also huffed along on a Stairmaster at the UAF Student Rec Center while each wore a pack loaded with 85 pounds of iron weights.

Friends and family have helped the pair get ready for the trip. A fellow student bought them $120 worth of sour-gummy candy with his leftover dining money at UAF. They also received funds from Alaska Space Grant at UAF that enabled them to buy new gear and they got discounts on equipment from Beaver Sports, where Jaramillo works part-time.

As they pursue their goal of climbing the highest peak in North America, Jaramillo and Crisafi-Lurtsema have another mission, one that no climber has executed before: to find out whether microplastics have reached the frozen roof of North America.

Since the late ‘70s, the UAF Geophysical Institute has provided this column free in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer for the Geophysical Institute.