When Vancouver first passed through the Icy Strait in 1732, the entrance
was a wall of ice. Today Glacier Bay penetrates 200 miles northward
to the Canadian border. Hundreds of cubic miles of glacier ice have
been replaced by saltwater within recorded history.
We steamed up the main arm and then up Tarr Inlet to its current head
at the Margerie and Great Pacific Glaciers.
This rocky landscape so recently recarved by the ice is being reoccupied
by plantlife in evident stages.
Calving
Margerie Glacier was calving new icebergs every few minutes.
Mount
Fairweather
Vancouver was apparently joking when he saw the dome of Mount Fairweather
to the east from the Pacific Ocean. We had a closer view to the west
in incredibly fair weather.
From this point Mount Fairweather is 3 miles up and 10 miles out, perhaps
the greatest elevation profile on earth.
Johns-Hopkins
Glacier
From white snowfields that sustain it to the tidewater it keeps choked
with ice, Johns-Hopkins Glacier in the reflected sunlight overwhelmed
even polarized sunglasses.
