The Incredible Splendor of Glacier Bay...
Just 100 years ago, Glacier Bay was completely choked with ice, and now the massive glaciers continue to advance and recede at their leisure - and boats are still the main way of getting around There is nothing in the world to compare this mysterious and awesome beauty with ..... But let me start on the Monday ..... On Monday we were sailing through the magnificent dark blue waters of the Pacific Ocean - at its deepest 4 km (14 000 ft). In the afternoon we were going through some huge swells, approaching the world famous Glacier Bay. What is a Glacier?Glaciers form because snowball in the high mountains exceed snowfall. These snowflakes first change to granular snow - round ice grains - but the accumulating weight soon presses it into solid ice. Eventually, gravity sets the ice mass flowing downslope at up to 7 feet per day. As water undermines some ice fronts, great blocks of ice up to 200 ft high, break loose and crash into the water. These majestic glaciers seen here today are remnants of a general ice advance - the Little Ice Age, that began about 4 000 years ago.
Glacier Bay National Park was designated a national monument in 1925. Its purpose was to preserve the glacier environment and plant communities for public enjoyment, scientific study and historic interest. In 1922 it was listed as a World Heritage Site. Our first day on the deep blue waters of the Pacific was wonderful - I was already starting to relax, we were journeying into another world, where glaciers continue to form the landscape, exactly as they did centuries ago. The mists from the bay was rising mysteriously, and the magnificent quiet was broken only by the thunder of the ice before it plunges into the bay .... History of Glacier BayThe Bay shore line was completely covered with ice just 200 years ago. Explorer Capt George Vancouver found Icy Strait choked with ice in 1794, and Glacier Bay was barely a glacier. That glacier was more than 4 000 ft thick, up to 20 miles or more wide, and extended more than 100 miles. But by 1879 naturalist John Muir found that the ice had retreated 48 miles up the bay. By 1916 the Grand Pacific Glacier headed Tarr Inlet 65 minutes from Glacier Bay's mouth. Such rapid retreat is known nowhere else.Ten percent of our world is under ice today. If the world's ice caps thawed completely, sea level would rise enough to inundate half the world's cities. The Greenland and Antarctic ice caps are 2 miles thick. Alaska is four percent ice.
The dark mountains are so close by my window, I can touch it - green with thick pine trees and so pristine. Small, thin icy white waterfalls drop down from between the cracks, high up from the top of the mountain. Spectacular ---and unspeakably pure .......... In this sea wilderness, the whale is king. Schools of orcas and humpbacks feed here and mate before swimming thousands of miles to winter in the warm waters of Hawaii and Mexico's Sea of Cortez. Whales in Glacier BayWhales, symbolizing the struggle to preserve nature, include the largest creature our world has known. Blue whales weigh up to 140 tons. The Bay waters include the minke, humpback and one toothed, the orca. Whales often live in family groups, aid each other in distress and communicate with each other.Minke whales occur throughout many oceans and are common from Southern California to the Bering Sea. They are uncommon in the Bay. Minkes are fast swimmers, making speeds up to 20 miles per hour. Orca whales, also known as killer whales or wolves of the sea, feed on fish, sea lions, seals , sharks and other whales. They have no natural enemies. Male orca whales average about 23 feet long. They are highly intelligent and readily trained in captivity. Humpback whales show their enormous fin. They are endangered and migrate as far as Hawaii each winter. They are the most acrobatic of whales - found in all oceans. Humpbacks must store enough fat in summer to last the rest of the year. Return from Glacier Bay to Home Page
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