July 29, 2010

Margerie Glacier


This was the farthest North the Alize' will be sailing. We reached the top of Glacier Bay at the junction between Margerie Glacier - the brilliant blue one and Grand Pacific - the dirty black one. The face of Margerie is 250 feet high and 2 miles wide. The glacier stretches 21 miles down a valley - fed by a massive ice field - the glacier is slowly marching into the saltwater at an equal rate to the formation of ice at the top of the valley. So, this glacier is deemed stable.




















This is the spot where we dropped the anchor and spent the night. We fell asleep listening to chunks of ice calving off the glacier - the Tlinget call the sound, 'white thunder'.











Some of the front fingers of the glacier calved off while I was kayaking near the cliffs. You can see the wave generated in the bottom of this picture.

Black-tailed Kittiwakes colonize the cliffs adjacent to the glacier.

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