Today we ventured into Glacier Bay and ticked off another Bucket List item, we picked up the National Parks Rangers by boat from the Park Headquarters at Bartlett Bay at around 6.30am and then steamed north for another 65 miles before we got to Reid Glacier. The Norwegian Jewel was ahead of us all the way up the bay.
It was foggy on the trip up but gradually cleared. The Grand Pacific which all these Glaciers where part off was in 1879 at this point, it is now receded past the waters edge near Margerie Glacier
Glacier Bay today is the product of the Little Ice Age, a geological recent glacial advance in the northern regions. The Little Ice Age reached its maximum extent about 1750. Some glaciers are retreating here, others are advancing unlike in some mountains in the contiguous states where glaciers may soon be a thing of the past.
We saw 5 Glaciers, Reid, Lamplugh, John Hopkins, Margerie (the biggest) and Rendu. We where told there are over 1000 Glaciers in Alaska.
When we arrived at Margerie Glacier we had 1 hour to enjoy the sites and sounds. The cruise boat rotated very slowly 4 times so everyone no matter where you were on the boat saw it 4 times, we viewed it from our cabin balcony.
The view was spectacular, we heard it creaking and groaning and saw on numerous occasions small sections break off and crash into the bay, and we saw one large section come crashing down.
As we headed back down the bay to drop off the park rangers the Fog rolled in again and then headed out to sea towards Whitter. We will spend all of tomorrow at sea.
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