This morning at around 9 am we came face to face with Hubbard Glacier. What an awesome encounter! There are hundreds of shades of blue here in Alaska: the sky is washed in azure, the sea has a steel blue sheen to it, and the glacier ice is this gorgeous turquoise encrusted with translucent white, an otherworldly color fashioned by the density of the ice which absorbs all the colors of the spectrum except for blue, which is reflected. Hubbard is a calving glacier, i.e. it was created when pieces of a tidewater glacier broke off and fell into the sea. The process of its creation is still evident, 400 years later. Ice continues to crack softly as the glacier shifts and moves and, every now and then, there is a huge, thunderous boom as large chunks of ice become detached and drop spectacularly into the sea. It’s awe-inspiring. Puts things into perspective. Hubbard Glacier is 76 miles long, 7 miles wide, and 600 feet tall (350 feet exposed above the waterline and 250 feet below). Interestingly enough, rather than thinning and retreating, Hubbard Glacier has been thickening and advancing steadily into Disenchantment Bay since measurements began in the late 1800s. [photograph from www.alaska.org]
