Today was the "Big Finale" for the cruise. The Hubbard Glacier, stretching over 76 miles from its origin in the Yukon Territory to Disenchantment Bay in Alaskan waters.
We'd been told we'd get as close as 1/2 mile....well, conditions were excellent today and the captain got us much closer than 1/4 mile! He apparently beat his previous record from last year in terms of getting close. The Alaskan Tour guide who's been doing presentations on upcoming locales said he'd never been this close in 15 summers of doing this.
The view from our breakfast table.
And then the ice floes started getting larger....
I think that upper portion of ice in the distance is
Valerie Glacier which merges at this point with Hubbard Glacier
The ship would get even closer....
This was, as you can see, the closest we got to the glacier.
To my eyes, we were closer than a ship's length!
The blue ice is the compressed ice, recently exposed to
the air, as it melts, it'll reflect more colors till one
can see the normal "white" of ice.
On the right, the opening into Russell Fjord
Hubbard Glacier continues to advance and will eventually
close off Russell Fjord, creating Russell Lake!
The western edge of the Glacier's edge....
Toasting a successful viewing of the glacier
with Champagne back at our cabins
Exiting back into Yakutat Bay, headed for open water and Seward.
The Pilot Boat recovering the Pilot who guided the
ship into Disenchantment Bay....
During lunch, we passed by Moun St. Elias
over 18,000 feet in height!
4 comments:
Nice glacier photos! I always like seeing the blue color of the ice.
Thanks RichardM....truly quite the sight the Hubbard Glacier.
Impressive, Dom. Great idea to keep people in the picture in order to set the size into perspective. This glacier is huge!
Thanks SonjaM, yeah I try and put objects in the foreground to add depth and scale. Truly a huge glacier.
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