Cruise to Glacier Bay in south east Alaska. Pictures of glaciers from Alaska

Glacier Bay
Glacier Bay is a deep fjord with many smaller branches, where several glaciers flow from different ice fields, straight into the Pacific Ocean.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Glacier Bay is a fjord about 108 kilometers long and featured by many lateral arms. Only 200 years ago it was buried under an immense sheet of ice up to 1300 meters thick and extended from the current fjord's mouth, up to the Wrangell / St. Elias mountain range. This was the situation that Captain George Vancouver found here while exploring the area in year 1794, but during a following expedition conducted in 1879 by the naturalist John Muir, it was discovered a totally different situation, with the glacier retracted for well 80 kilometers toward the inland. Up to year 1916, this immense glacier continued to retract at a very fast rate, until it reached the current lenght of about 108 kilometers. From then, it continued to retract --- sometime to advance slightly --- but never at the impressive rate that have characterized the past centuries. It seems that a so fast glacier retraction has no similar cases in the history of the Planet. The lands that was covered by a huge sheet of ice short time ago, are now covered by a dense vegetation and a rich fauna, either terrestrial and marine. For more information, look at the Gustavus page.

MAP OF GLACIER BAY AREA
(The entire fjord is about 60 miles long, the pink lines show the glacier's tongue limit over the years.
Click to enlarge.)

(Please click on a picture to show an enlarged version)



	The ship leaves from the dock on time this morning. It will be a daylong cruise to reach the current glaciers' limits and come back to Gustavus. The scenery on the way is breathtaking. On the bottom-left picture, some excursionist travel by kayak in a remote inlet.


A female brown bear, walking with her cub on a beach.


Gulls and puffins nesting on the rocks.



	After several hours of navigations, the ship reaches Margerie glacier and thence, the Grand Pacific which marks the end of the fjord.



Grand Pacific glacier. The dark patches are created by huge amount of debris carved out from the surrounding terrain.



The ship is now heading back to Gustavus. On the way, it makes frequent stops near the most accessible glaciers.







Other nice pictures from Margerie, Lamplugh and Reid glaciers. The walls of ice are often more than 30 metres high.


	The fjord has many smaller brances, often filled with small icebergs where seals rest on.



	In some place, the ice was totally melted and disappeared. In this case, just the old moraine can be seen and in a couple of century everything may be covered with a dense forest like around Gustavus now.


	The following day I take a wonderful flightseeing tour on a small Cessna for about one hour. The view from above is absolutely impressive, even from just taking off from Gustavus.

Seals resting on a beach.


	We soon reach mt. Fairweather (the Southeast's tallest peak) where there is a feeding zone for glaciers running down into the sea.




Other spectacular views on the mountains.


	With a series of 360 degrees turns, the airplane descents into the fjord, where there is a beautiful view of a glacier.




Other nice views over the glaciers and icefields.


The snow, which accumulates on the "feeding" areas, may exceed several hundreds of feet in thickness, before flowing away in the bay and breaking into huge icebergs.

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*ALASKA PICTURES*
	Juneau Juneau, the Alaska's capital, is the ideal base from where short or longer tours to Alaska Southeast can be organized. GO.
	Excursions from Gustavus Gustavus, in Alaska Southeast, is a small community in the middle of a rainforest, part of Tongass National Forest, from where many tours and excursions are available. GO.
	Glacier Bay cruise in Alaska south-east <YOU ARE HERE> Glacier Bay is a deep fjord with many smaller branches, where several glaciers flow from different ice fields, straight into the Pacific Ocean.
	Barrow day tour Barrow, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, is the Alaska and USA last frontier, the northernmost village of the country, several hundreds miles north of the Arctic Circle. GO.
	Kotzebue and Kiana day tours Near the Bering Strait and just north of the Arctic Circle, these small communities still live on traditions, in a place far away from the civilization. GO.
	Nome, the ending point of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race Nome, just south of the Arctic Circle, on the Bering sea, is known for the gold rush during the last century and to be the end point of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. GO.
	Katmai National Park and the brown bears Katmai National Park has a huge concentration of brown bears (grizzly) and is a paradise because of the beautiful landscape, made of volcanoes, lakes, rivers and endless forests. GO.
	Anchorage and Portage day tour Anchorage is the Alaska's biggest city and, from here, many tours leave to the natural wonders all around, like glaciers, forests and fjords where whales and orcas can be found. GO.

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