Glacier Bay
It's hard to imagine that Glacier Bay was completely filled with ice when Captain George Vancouver explored the area in 1794. The bay did not really exist then, since an ice sheet covered it. How the ice has moved in 200 years! Today, after entering Glacier Bay, we motored 60 miles to the north-northwest to reach Grand Pacific glacier, the giant that once filled the area. Other glaciers we saw along our transit to the face of Grand Pacific had simply been tributary glaciers to this one colossal mass of moving ice. Today it is still enormous, extending back dozens of miles over the Canadian border. Its face is nearly four miles across, and is a very dirty-looking grayish black. Hardly the image of ice most of us have! As glaciers flow over and between mountains, they grind them down, and carry tons of the mountains with them. The black front of Grand Pacific is evidence of the carving power of the glaciers feeding into it.
Right next to that large, dark mass of ice is Margerie Glacier. Its blue and white face is over 200 feet tall, and has cracks, crevasses and spires. We watched with hopeful expectation from four tenths of a mile away, a safe distance in case of a large calving. Well, we were in luck! Large columns of ice shifted, tilted, groaned and tumbled into the water. Moments later, we heard rumbles of "white thunder," the deep, loud sounds from shifting glacial ice. And minutes later, the ship rocked gently on the waves. We watched several more icebergs calve, and fragments the size of office buildings toppled into the water.
Early in the day we had passed close by South Marble Island, an important habitat for many seabirds. Kittiwakes, gulls, tufted puffins, murres and oystercatchers flew and settled on the rocky mound. Bald eagles flew overhead, and a couple hundred Steller sea lions lazed in clusters on the rocks. As we transited the bay, some of us practiced nautical skills, tying bowlines and crafting decorative monkeys fists out of line.
It's hard to imagine that Glacier Bay was completely filled with ice when Captain George Vancouver explored the area in 1794. The bay did not really exist then, since an ice sheet covered it. How the ice has moved in 200 years! Today, after entering Glacier Bay, we motored 60 miles to the north-northwest to reach Grand Pacific glacier, the giant that once filled the area. Other glaciers we saw along our transit to the face of Grand Pacific had simply been tributary glaciers to this one colossal mass of moving ice. Today it is still enormous, extending back dozens of miles over the Canadian border. Its face is nearly four miles across, and is a very dirty-looking grayish black. Hardly the image of ice most of us have! As glaciers flow over and between mountains, they grind them down, and carry tons of the mountains with them. The black front of Grand Pacific is evidence of the carving power of the glaciers feeding into it.
Right next to that large, dark mass of ice is Margerie Glacier. Its blue and white face is over 200 feet tall, and has cracks, crevasses and spires. We watched with hopeful expectation from four tenths of a mile away, a safe distance in case of a large calving. Well, we were in luck! Large columns of ice shifted, tilted, groaned and tumbled into the water. Moments later, we heard rumbles of "white thunder," the deep, loud sounds from shifting glacial ice. And minutes later, the ship rocked gently on the waves. We watched several more icebergs calve, and fragments the size of office buildings toppled into the water.
Early in the day we had passed close by South Marble Island, an important habitat for many seabirds. Kittiwakes, gulls, tufted puffins, murres and oystercatchers flew and settled on the rocky mound. Bald eagles flew overhead, and a couple hundred Steller sea lions lazed in clusters on the rocks. As we transited the bay, some of us practiced nautical skills, tying bowlines and crafting decorative monkeys fists out of line.
