May 29 -- Glacier Bay, A Dynamic Wilderness


Glacier Bay, A Dynamic Wilderness
Overnight we sailed toward Glacier Bay and arrived at 6 am to Bartlett Cove to take on board the Glacier Bay National Park park ranger for the day.  Although a couple of hundred years ago the entire bay was a huge glacier (100 miles long and thousands of feet deep), today the glacier is gone and what remains is a dozen tide water glaciers at the heads of their inlets in the upper bay.  The tallest peak is 15,300 ft (Mt. Fairweather) in the Fairweather Range.  The glaciers we will see flow from the Brady Icefield that caps the Fearweather Range.  The 600,000 acres of Glacier Bay NP are a federally protected marine ecosystems.  No roads lead to the park and the park is reached by either boat or air with most arriving on cruise ships.  Within the Park are fifteen tidewater glaciers.  Today we will see the Margerie, Grand Pacific, Lamplugh, and Johns Hopkins Glaciers.  Declared a national monument in 1925, the area became a National Park in 1980. 
The changes in the glacier advances/retreats have been documented since 1794, with the trip of Capt. George Vancouver on his Vancouver Expedition to map the region.  At that time, Glacier Bay did not exist, but was one huge tidewater glacier.  When naturalist John Muir arrived in 1879, using Vancouver’s maps, he found the ice had retreated almost all the way up the bay (48 miles).  By 1916, the Grand Pacific glacier had retreat to the head of the Tarr Inlet (65 miles from the mouth of Glacier Bay).  The Johns Hopkins Glacier, on the other hand, has been advancing at the rate of 10 to 15 ft. per day since 2012.  The Margerie Glacier has retreated in the last couple of years.
By 10 am, we had sailed the length of Glacier Bay with superb view of the mountains




 and arrived at the upper end of Tarr Inlet to view the Margerie and Grand Pacific glaciers.  Margerie Glacier is white with embedded blue ice and is 250 ft in height and over a mile wide.  The Grand Pacific Glacier, on the other hand, is very dark with embedded rocks, gravel, and silt.  Being on the port side of the ship, we had the first views of the Margerie Glacier and viewed it for about 30 minutes before the ship was turned.  The glacier was gorgeous and we witnessed a “minnie” calving.
Margerie Glacier







Grand Pacific Glacier

  We had great views of the surrounding mountains and the bay as the ship turned 360o to permit everyone to have an unobstructed view of the glaciers.  At 11:00 am, we moved location to enter the Johns Hopkins Inlet for viewings of the Lamplugh (mouth of the inlet on the left) and Johns Hopkins (upper end of the inlet) Glaciers.

Lamplugh Glacier
Johns Hopkins Glacier


 At 11:30 am, the ship proceeded to travel back to the mouth of the bay and permit the park ranger to disembark by 3:00 pm.  We had lunch and proceeded to the theatre to hear the park ranger give a 30 minute talk on the park.  Although only 29 days on the job at Glacier Bay, she gave a very good presentation on the “Stories in Ice and Stone.”







We then turned into the Ice Straits and out into the Pacific Ocean for sailing to our port at Whittier.  Along the way we will stop at College Fjord (6 pm tomorrow) to see the magnificent glaciers in this fjord.  Then on Wednesday we disembark the ship.
Dinner tonight was at Sabatini's where we had Artichoke Souffle, Salad (Larry), Manicotti (Bev), Rack of Veal (Larry), Turbo (Bev),  Tiramisu (Larry), and Vanilla Ice Cream (Bev).  I dinner was outstanding.


Comments

  1. EmilyMay 30, 2017 at 7:32 PM

    Mom, it looks like you need a warmer jacket!! Glad the glacier viewing was pretty.

    ReplyDelete

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