Glaciers in Alaska

Blue ice
Portage Glacier, Alaska

Alaska is a great place to visit. A vast state in the USA. Most of Alaska is pretty much inaccessible, even in the summer months. Even less accessible in the winter. The main reason for me visiting Alaska was to go to Brook Falls in Katmai National Park to look for brown bears. This was really a great experience and there is already a post on that part of the trip. After my bears trip, I took the train from Anchorage to Seward. Another great part of my trip and well worth a separate blog, which I will do in due course. In this post, I will be talking about the glaciers in Alaska. Coming from South Africa, snow and glaciers are something that we just don't get, so the opportunity to see a glacier up close was something I just had to do. So I did two glacier trips during my short stay in Alaska. The first was in Portage Lake to see the Portage Glacier. The second trip was to Northwestern Fjord from Seward. I was in Alaska in their "summer" but every day was cloudy and pretty cold. There are beautiful photos (postcards) of the glaciers with beautiful blue skies. I asked one of the locals when the sky might clear and he told me that they had two sunny days last summer! So no clear skies for me. The poor light made taking photos quite tricky, but one of the advantages of the poor light was the blue colour of the glaciers really stands out. In the good light, you can't really see the deep blue colour of the ice. Guess you can't have it all. Blue skys or blue ice. I would choose the blue ice.
More Blue ice
Boat to visit the glacier in the lake

The first trip was to Portage Lake from Anchorage on a tour bus. This trip started off going along the Seaward highway though some really beautify landscapes. Low cloud and poor light made taking photos quite difficult. We had a short stop at a point which is very good to see Baluga whales, but my luck was out. I really would have loved to see these beautiful white whales. Oh well, always need to  leave something for another trip!

My first tiny glacier

Once the bus arrives at Portage Lake, we all boarded a boat and headed off to the glacier. The closer we got the colder it go! There was a seriously chilly wind coming off the glacier. The lake was filled this chunks of floating ice which had broken off from the glacier. The boat could not get too close to the glacier for fear of being hit by large chunks of ice breaking off from the glacier, which is called "calving" for some strange reason. The glacier was massive! When you see it from a distance, you have no idea just how big the glacier really is.

Massive Portage glacier
Ice in the Lake
Potage Lake with ice

Spot the boat. This gives and indication of the size of the glacier.
The next glacier experience was from Seward. This was another boat ride across open ocean to the glaciers. It was a pretty rough trip, but fortunately, I do not suffer from sea sickness.  This glacier was really massive. Once again, the boats cannot get too close to the glacier as large bits can fall off and cause quite  substantial waves and even crush the boat. The closest we could get was 2 miles (we were in the USA and they have still not gone metric!). If you can spot the boat, you get an idea of just how big the glacier is. You could hear the ice creaking and cracking and there were frequent "calfing" events. Large bits of the glacier falling off into the sea.
More blue ice

Another small glacier

With the problem of global warming, many of these glaciers are melting at a rate which is faster then they are forming.The frequency of the calving events seems to have something to do with global warming, but on the other hand, glaciers have been moving down the mountains for millions of years. It it was not for man, we would be moving into another "ice age", but man is forcing the world into global Warming. Oh course the "Great and mighty" (no, not the wizard of Oz) Donald Trump thinks Global warming is fake news. I wonder what he will say when the foyer of Trump Towers in New York in under water?
Glacier calving


Anyway, seeing real live glaciers up close was an amazing experience. Alaska was an amazing experience I would just love to go there again. I would redo everything I did the first time and more.
A bit of ice with your drink?


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