Today was a special day for Barb and I. Although we woke up to a very heavy fog, the skies cleared and we got to see something we have never seen before. I'm sure those of you who have visited Alaska have seen the Hubbard Glacier. This is something that even pictures do not do justice to but we have tried to show you the size of this behemoth.
The glacier is 122 km or 76 miles long stretching all the way to the Yukon in Canada, and is 6 miles wide. It's height is 700 feet! This is a tidal glacier meaning it reaches the sea and tides I'm sure, affect this. It can take 400 years for the ice to travel the full distance of this glacier and when it reaches the sea it breaks off or calves into the water. This is a regular occurrence and we saw quite a few of these calves while we were sitting only 1/2 a mile from it.
The sound. the cracking and then to break away is really something to see. We have tried to capture this experience for you with our pictures and videos.
Our ship launched the rescue boat while we were here, to retrieve a piece of glacier that had broken away. They brought it back on deck for pictures.
You need a BIG DRINK to put that piece of glacier in!!!! The calves look amazing!
ReplyDeleteAnd yay! We made the blog!!!!! :-)
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