Some of the really spectacular and awe inspiring sights we saw were of glaciers. There are no glaciers in Indiana. It was eerie to see them. They looked unreal. The ice was various shades of blue ranging from a light robin’s egg blue to a stunning deep cobalt blue. This is because the glacier ice is compacted removing air and forming the ice into dense crystals. When light hits the crystals, they absorb red light and scatter blue light. The farther the light has to travel the darker the blue color!
We visited Mendenhall Glacier. The glacier moves about 2 feet per day but is losing volume much faster. That means it is shrinking since loss exceeds any gains from new snow. The visitor’s center had a series of photographs from the 1950s to today – and it is a convincing case for the reality of climate change!
Then we visited Glacier Bay. The cruise ship was only able to get so far into the bay because there were so many ice chunks in the water they were afraid of damaging the propellers! Glacier Bay has seven tidewater glaciers: Margerie Glacier, Grand Pacific Glacier, McBride Glacier, Lamplugh Glacier, Johns Hopkins Glacier, Gilman Glacier, and LaPerouse Glacier. The high tide-water glaciers include Riggs Glacier, Reid Glacier, Lituya Glacier, and North Crillon Glacier. Some of these regularly calve icebergs into the bay! The bay has a weird sound to it – a crinkling like cellophane and a creaking that reminds me of tall trees in a fierce wind. It is the sound of the ice moving and pieces breaking off. I didn’t get a photo of a chunk falling into the water but we heard it!
A Different Perspective 
This is why the word awesome exists
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Yes it was completely awesome! The photos fail to take in the scope of the place!
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It’s on my bucket list
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Better hurry! they might be gone soon!!
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Yeeks! A bit is sad and scary thought.
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Yes. Very sad and scary. Climate change is real and reshaping the planet…
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We see he glaciers are melting , Val . I know it was in summer but they say the global warming is not good for the glaciers in Alaska or elsewhere like the Alps .
Love ❤
Michel
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At this rate there may not be glaciers of this scale anymore. It is sad…
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Val, how did you feel when you were in this place?
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Caitlynngrace I felt so small. The size of the glaciers doesn’t translate in the photographs. Coupled with the enormity of the sky and the vastness of the water I was nothing more than a speck… Which of course makes God’s personal concern for me all the more amazing…
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The colors are very cold, so many shades of grey. It’s beyond my understanding that anyone can deny climate change. And what a loss! (K)
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It was very cold on the boat observation deck – kind of like winter in Northern Indiana! And yes I was wearing my coat and several layers underneath!
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Even with the sounds I would imagine a sense of calm.
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It was more a sense of anticipation. There were random and sudden loud noises as the ice shifted and broke off…
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well then that would be far from peaceful. 🙂
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It was unique but I didn’t find it tranquil…
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Amazing! Thanks for sharing all of that.
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You are very welcome Dodi! It was an unusual and sort of eerie atmosphere. Not something I’ll soon forget!
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Wow….it took my breath away…its beautiful….
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Mich it was more so than the photos captured. A grand expanse what seemed to be living ice…
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Beautiful photos. They made me cold on the coldest morning so far this fall.
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It was like being in a freezer! Now I know what those fish in the seafood case feel like!! hehehe!
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Lol. I want to go to Alaska in the summer sometime.
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I think end of August was just about perfect – away from the heat in the Midwest but not into a freezer (most of the places we went)!
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Wonderful.
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It was!
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We also took the cruise into Glacier Bay and wow! So beautiful!!
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We got fairly close but there were some smaller boats that got really close – too close for comfort in my opinion… It was spectacular!
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Beautiful.
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Thanks Martha! I’m not a photographer – just imagine if I were able to get really good close up pictures….
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🙂 I think that whenever I see the crane tourists with their long lenses and their fancy camera.
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Hehe! I’m not so intense that I’m willing to spend money on that kind of equipment… I enjoy just experiencing it which is why it was so difficult to remember to actually take photos!
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I understand!
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I knew you would!
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I love the blue of that glacial ice! The glaciers have really changed in the few years since I was last there — climate change and global warming are really here, and they are affecting the entire globe!
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Absolutely. I was so taken by the Mendenhall photo gallery that showed the changes in the last 70 years (since the first photo record was started in 1950). Climate change is real and accelerating faster than even I imagined!!
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I hope you also have an opportunity to see (in person or photos) a glacier calving — it’s quite an experience to see huge chunks falling into the water!
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I’ve seen some videos. We were in Glacier Bay and there were some chunks that calved – but we were on the wrong side of the ship to see it happen. We could however hear it! (and after it happened we managed to get to that side and people pointed out where it came from and where it was in the water…
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WOW. I’m sorry, I just keep WOWING, don’t I?
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It really was that kind of experience – a wow wow wow kind of thing so no apologies needed!
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awesomely eerie, how amazing … I cycled around a glacier in Norway but it wasn’t melting then so I had none of those scary sound effects. Just awesome grand silence!
Your graphic pics and description are great Val 🙂
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It was quite startling – the sound. I’d never been in a place that had so much ice in motion. I always thought of ice as silent and unmoving…
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have heard about the movement but you described the sounds so graphically!
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That’s interesting about the blue color. Never knew. Very cool.
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I hadn’t expected the blue color. It almost looked like someone had used blue food coloring on the ice. In my imagination they were mountains of white and clear ice. The reality is much different. There is so much debris in the ice from ground rocks and dirt that when they melt the water turns a chalky color!
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Just a little clarification — the rocks and debris sink to the bottom, and the chalky color in the water is from the air bubbles that were embedded in the ice that fell off that made the ice blue!
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Ha! No Janet I was talking about the glacial melt – the glacial flour – that makes the streams look milky and the lakes look a bright other worldly blue. We saw this all over and although it was pretty, it was depositing silt and making it hard for the fish… Usually it happens and then subsides but with the glaciers melting so rapidly it is a big issue… As for the air bubbles we really didn’t see that as we were at a distance from where the glaciers calved…
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So beautiful aren’t they? I’m from the Pacific Northwest so I have seen and appreciate the glaciers!
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It was beautiful and a little frightening – the power and the sheer size of the glaciers…
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Yes…everything about the ocean and the glaciers is a bit frightening!
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Especially for a landlocked flatlander!
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That’s amazing! I’m glad you got to go on such a refreshing trip.
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It was very fun and we did a lot in a compact time – but it was good to be home again too!
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Wow – the scenery must be amazing. I would be on deck most of the time with my camera.
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We were outside for a good portion of the time – but with the wind and the cold I was afraid I’d drop my phone. Of course there were all the folks with their fancy equipment and tripods…
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Stunning!!
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The glaciers were a marvel!
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I am sure that Mendenhall has, sadly, lost some of its mass since I was there in 2015. My mother was astonished to see the difference between its 2015 mass and that of 1990, when she visited southeast Alaska.
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It has! They are taking photos from the same vantage point every year and they started in the 1950s. The glacier is really shrinking rapidly!! The photo evidence points to global warming as a real problem and one that should not be ignored!!!
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