Margerie Glacier
Tag: glacier
A Tidewater Glacier
A wall of ice, hundreds of feet high, towering above the water with jagged teeth waiting to crush any hapless vessel below under blocks of ice the size of minivans. The stuff of adventure novels and endless nature documentaries. Such places do exist, where the power of nature is seen raw and in full glory. Witnessing such a spectacle is worth making the effort to get to one of these remote places, where rivers of ice meet the sea.
The show is generally best on a rising tide, as the sea level increases the face of the glacier is lifted and the most unstable pillars of ice come crashing down. Watching from a safe distance gives a chance to see the process in action. No guarantee of a large collapse, no way to predict what will fall on any given day. One can only try to time their visit with high tide to allow the best chance of seeing ice collapses.
When one of the towering seracs does collapse it generally gives warning, small ice falls around it increase in frequency. Something that large does not move fast, but collapses with a slow motion slide into the water. A photographer with a ready camera will have ample opportunity to grab a few frames as the avalanche of ice comes down. The collapse will create a large wave that threatens any nearby vessels, wise to stay well back. Even half a mile away the waves created by the ice will rock any vessels in the fjord.
Postcard from Alaska – Iceberg
Ice dots the water across the entry, large bergs lie beached near the shore stranded between tides. We pick are way carefully though the crowd, many of the chunks larger that our vessel. The bar across the entry to Tracy Arm is betrayed by a long line of icebergs grounded to reveal the shallow water beneath. Here the history of a thousand winters lies shattered about the landscape like broken glass.
Alaska Roundup
It is over, an odd and melancholy feeling pervades. After three weeks out the boat begins to feel like home, leaving it a sad thing. But we are also ready to go back to our regular lives, which are not really all that bad in Hawai’i. Looking forward to seeing friends and getting back into the swirl of the life we have built on the island. I return to the observatory, with a major project coming to a peak with the delivery of the K1 laser. Deb has gotten a call from the school, they want her back for the next school year.
Three weeks on the water. Three weeks of beautiful weather, whales, halibut, icebergs and fantastic scenery. Hard to think of how the trip could have gone better, maybe a few more fish caught?
Week one was spent mostly touring with just enough fishing to eat and a little for some friends to take home. We headed south from Juneau to the fjord of Tracy Arm to dodge icebergs for a day. From there it was further south around the end of Admiralty Island. As we passed the Brothers Islands there were whales, both humpback and orca everywhere, also sea lions and porpoise. Up Chatham Straight we stopped at Barnof Hot Springs and one of my favorite places, Tenakee Springs.
Postcard from Alaska – Tracy Arm
Tracy Arm is one of the must see places near Juneau. If you are not traveling in your own boat you can jump on one of the fast excursion boats that make the run from Juneau each day. A classic fjord with walls that tower thousands of feet above, waterfalls everywhere, and icebergs to make navigation interesting as you make your way up the glacially carved canyon. The terrain beneath the water is just as dramatic, not unusual to be a few hundred feet from shore with a thousand feet of water below the keel. In some places the depth finder can not find bottom, over 1,200 ft or more down.
At the top there is Sawyer Glacier, a tidewater glacier that drops those icebergs into the water as you watch. There are actually two glaciers, in twin arms of the fjord that separate near the end of the trip. Sit among the ice flows watching the seals and ice crashing from the cliff-like face. If you can time your arrival for high tide it is far more likely to see a really big calving, with hundreds or thousands of tons of ices breaking free from the face to crash into the water and create waves that rock the boat.
It is customary to scoop up some of that glacial ice floating around to fill your coolers. Crystal clear and very dense, the ice from the bottom of the glacier is interesting stuff. We break it up and make cocktails out of it to enjoy as we cruise back down the fjord.
