Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve

There’s not much else to say about it. Simply an incredible view of the forces of nature. Went on a Princess Cruise through the inside passage up from Vancouver, BC. This and College Fjord were the highlights. Park rangers boarded the ship and rode along the entire time we were in the park. Saw ice calving, whales and seals. No otters but there were plenty in college fjord.

We traveled there on a cruise on our honeymoon. We Saw lots of glacier calving and drank some pretty blue drink with “glacier ice” in it that the cruise workers supposedly retrieved with a lifeboat.

To me, the highlight of our visit to Glacier Bay National Park was the Margerie Glacier. The Margerie Glacier is a wall of ice about 250 feet tall and about a mile wide. Large chunks of this glacier are constantly “calving” or breaking off. Our ship pulled up alongside the glacier and we were able to watch many pieces calve.

First you hear a large “CRAAAACK” eminating from somewhere on the glacier. Seconds later you will see a chunk of ice, sometimes large, sometimes small, fall from the glacier into the water. As the ice hits the water it sends out a wave, based on the mass of the ice. These waves are usually quite small, but on one occassion we witnessed a chunk of ice which was the full height of the glacier, and about 250 feet in width calve off from the front face. When it hit the water the wave was massive. The captain quickly turned the ship about so that the wave would hit us head-on and not from the side.

When the pieces of ice hit the water they start to roll. This comes about because they break up from a alarge piece of ice into smaller ones. As this happens the center of gravity of the new smaller pieces shifts, causing them to roll.

We sat and watched the glacier calve for a couple of hours. It was amazing to see. This was the highlight of the trip for me.

The scenery was unbelievable! As our ship sailed up the fjords I spent most of the day standing either at the balcony of my stateroom or on the ship’s main forward deck. My eyes were wide open. It was hard to believe the beautiful colors and the sheer grandeur of Glacier Bay National Park.

A park ranger that came on board gave us a narration of the areas through which we passed. The water was over 1000 feet deep. The mountains rose majestically from the water to unbelievable heights. Ice and snow were everywhere, especially at the upper elevations.

Thin ribbons could be seen extending from the ice and snow down the faces of the mountains. I had my binoculars with me. On closer examination I saw that these thin ribbons were actually waterfalls. They were everywhere. From the distance they first appeared to be small streams, but on closer inspection I could see that many of them were massive torrents.

Glacier Bay National Park is a very rare and special place. Watching the glaciers crumble and crack is more exciting than you might think. The sound is much like a Shotgun blast that echos across the surrounding mountains.

Sometimes you have to wait several minutes between episodes and other times the glaicers seem to put on an orchestrated show of crashing ice and bizarre sounds.

While I was watching the glaciers break into the water I began to think for a moment how I was witnessing global warming right before me, but after learning more about these mighty glaciers I was surprised to learn that they have been retreating for hundreds, even thousands of years and for many miles since their discovery.

We are simply in a long cycle of heating up before cooling off that follows the cycles of our sun heating up and cooling off.

I left glacier bay national park feeling concerned about rising sea levels and how we are going to have to deal with it, but at the same time realizing that there is nothing we can do about it.