The world through my eyes: Hubbard Glacier

This felt like what I'd imagined in Alaska. The ship sailed into Hubbard Bay. We got within about 1/2 mile of the glacier. The air was full of cracks and groans, crashes and pops. Glaciers are loud, not passive ice sheets but active, living things.

As before, you may want to click on the pictures to see the whole thing. You can see the earlier parts of this journey here: Seattle; the Inside Passage; Ketchikan, Icy Strait Point and Hoonah; Mendenhall Glacier and Juneau; Skagway.

Our first real view of the glacier. Note this is not the whole thing, I didn't have a wide angle lens.

The ice walls are 300' high. This pass is blocked in the winter -
the glacier grows and shrinks quite dramatically through the seasons.

The other side of the glacier. Note the debris field. Mountain remains.

We saw quite a bit of calving. It's LOUD.

A larger view of the gap.

I love the colors and the crags.

This is almost a good version of the blue. I love knowing that I am looking at time as well as space; the horizontal lines are hundreds (if not thousands) of years old.

I repeat, this ice wall is over 300' high. Dwarfed by the mountains.

Another calving.

The floating ice around us hissed and popped. As it melts compressed carbon dioxide is released; it's carbonated ice!

Leaving the glacier. You can see the debris trail in the ice to the left, the course of the glacier.

The world is a big place.

(c)2014 Laura S. Packer