Hubbard Glacier

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Today was a good day that left me a bit in awe of Alaska. I woke-up and forced myself to go exercise like a normal person. I have met my step goal every day on vacation but today I actually huffed it around the track for over 2 miles and got my heart rate up and even sweated a little bit. It felt great!! It’s not surprising how fast I can walk with no dog on the leash and a nice, level surface. After walking and breakfast, I watched the movie “Gifted” on our stateroom TV. It was okay.

Today our ship sailed to the Hubbard Glacier which is the most northern part of this ship’s journey for us. The glacier is 76 miles long and 6 miles wide and is the largest glacier in North America. It is one of the very few glaciers in the world that is increasing in size daily (95% of glaciers are receding). The ship is large and can only get so close without risking a Titanic episode. They took 148 passengers and 2 crew members on a smaller boat to see the glacier close-up. This is something you sign-up for, you pay for, and it was sold out rather quickly. We debated it a few months ago and finally decided we will probably only see Alaska once so let’s do it. It was a good decision. The HAL ship stopped, our smaller boat tied on to the side, we all walked onto the smaller boat, and then our small boat zoomed away and got up close with this glacier. They told us beforehand that if it was cloudy, we might not be able to see the glacier or if it was bad weather, we may not see much or get very close. If we were lucky, we might see a calving. A calving is when it sounds like a volcano is erupting which is the glacier cracking and large pieces of the glacier fall into the water and it crashes and explodes. Well… for starters… we had sunny and almost 60-degree weather today…. and we saw 2 bear cubs and a big fat mamma right away…. then we started seeing the glacier calve…over and over and over and over. We were able to get as close as is possible without having any safety issues. We also saw a few sea lion pups… some pink sea gulls…. and a bald eagle. They said today was the best day they’d had since they started these tours again in April. It was pretty cool. This one part of the glacier over to the side just kept falling apart and finally, this giant crack and roar was heard and a huge piece landed in the water and it sent a cloud burst of snow in the air and a giant wave erupted and came barreling toward the shoreline. We were well to the left of that area but they announced THAT is why we have to stay at least one-half mile away from the glacier at all times. It felt like we were on top of it but we were not. I’ve taken a gazillion pictures so enjoy the glacier for yourself! Nothing else happened today. It's midnight ship time and I'm wide awake (3am your time) because we went to bed so early!

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Photos

Bundle-up for the glacier they said....
...but we ended-up a bit warm in the end..

Our ship in comparison to the mountains
Our ship is 10 stories high