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Published: June 30th 2012
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Oh my god, how spectacular nature can be. This is obviously one of the most amazing places on this planet. The whole bay is more than 60 miles long from south to north and all of it was created by a gigantic glacier a few thousand years ago. There are many glaciers in the bay. The whole bay and surrounding area is a national park. We arrived at the mouth of the bay around 8:00 AM. The weather was kind of foggy with mist and pretty darn cold, the lower 40's. Not exactly beautiful for viewing, but that's the weather in the bay most of the time. The ship sailed all the way to the north end of the bay and then turned around and sailed back to the Gulf of Alaska.
We have balconies off our state rooms and this would give us a ringside seat for glacier viewing. The first glacier we saw was Reid Glacier. We thought that was pretty cool, but it was nothing compared to Margerie Glacier. That's the huge glacier you've probably seen in photos and on TV. We arrived at Margerie around 10:30. That's just the time that Dan had an appointment to
get a shave from the female barber on the ship. Of course, he didn't know that would be just the time that we would be at the most spectacular glacier we would see on the whole trip. After he returned form his shave, I asked him if he could see the glacier from the barber shop and he said, "No, I had cucumbers on my eyes." Evidently the shave is a luxurious affair complete with scalp and facial massage with oils and whatnot. His face WAS rather soft and radiant when he got back. He did get back in time to see Lamplugh Glacier which was pretty spectaclar as well.
Back to Margerie. There were 2 naturalists on the ship and they narrated the whole cruise through Glacier Bay. At one point the narrator told us that we were witnesssing true wilderness and told us to imagine looking at this unbeleivable place through the eyes of a loved one who could never see it. Jan, Marilyn and I all did exactly that. That got me kind of misty-eyed. I thought about Bobby and wishing he could have been there and hoping that somehow he was seeing it with me.
I thought of my Dad who would have loved to have gotten here, but never did. Then at Margerie, Marilyn and I both thought of our Moms. Both of our Moms were named Marjorie, not the same spelling, but close enough for us to consider it very special.
Margerie Glacier is moving at a pace of 7 feet per day. That's clipping along for something so gigantic. When we got close you could hear the ice calving off the glacier and falling into the sea. You would hear a loud crack, a rumble and then huge chunks would fall off like an avalanche. There were a couple really huge ones while we were there and many smaller ones. You worry about the global warming thing and these glaciers disappearing, but we were told that some of them are getting bigger and deeper, so who knows?
It's hard to descibe just how awesome this place is. The immensity of everything is impossible for me to capture with a camera. Margerie is probably 2 miles across. Lamplugh Glacier is 3/4 of a mile across. Some of the glaciers are up to 4,000 ft. deep. That's almost a mile thick! The
picture of the ship in front of Lamplugh Glacier probably gives the best perspective. It was a truly amazing day.
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anonymous
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Wow!!
Those glaciers are amazing!!!