Ice, Ice Baby

On Wednesday, our ship sailed into Glacier Bay.  The bay is a national park and an amazing array of wilderness abounds.  We saw miles and miles of forest, seals and whales and beautiful birds, soaring overhead and alongside the ship.  The main event, of course, is the glaciers.  This one, Margerie Glacier, calved several times as we watched.  There is most remarkable sound when a glacier calves.  You hear a crashing thunder followed by an enormous splash into the icy water below.  It's made all the more remarkable by the silence which proceeds and follows the event.

The blue color in the crevices of the ice is really quite lovely; the ocean around these glaciers was still and looked almost thick.  That's a result of the fact that the bay is a thousand feet deep and the water is heavier and a grayish green, the color and texture the result of glacial silt.

For most of my life, I've taken for granted the splendor of the western mountains of my childhood camping trips.  This trip has reminded me again just how rare and beautiful such wilderness is.  As our ship sailed out of the bay, we caught sight of kayakers camped on the the side of the bay and I was filled with envy.  How splendid it would be to wake up to these sights for a few mornings in a row.