We spent a full day at sea sailing from Valdez to our next port of call. The route was not just an unswerving path past magnificent scenery; the weather was clear and the sea calm, so we took time to sail close to the Hubbard Glacier. Here are some photos:
Regency’s Seven Seas Explorer headed northwest while we sail southeast on Viking’s Orion. Beautiful weather for this day at sea, so it was easy to see the mountains in the background. These are probably part of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I used to have an app to identify mountains in distant views, but it was not on hand to help me name the peaks as we sailed past this gorgeous mountain range.Mount Saint Elias as seen from our approach to the Hubbard Glacier. Stock photos of Mount Saint Elias look very different, depending on your viewpoint. We really like this view, which almost reminds me of the mountain used in the introduction to old Paramount movies. The trees where you might expect some kind of beach are actually the edge of a broad, flat outwash plain stretching from the base of the mountains to the sea. The peak itself is probably 40 miles or more away from us (as measured on Google Maps), which accounts for the haze in the photo.Here we are on an upper deck of the Orion, with Hubbard Glacier and various pieces of floating ice in the background. You can see one of my two workhorse cameras hanging by my side: a Canon R7 with Canon’s 100-500mm zoom lens. This combination weighs about four pounds, so you have to get used to the weight, but it is great for distance shots, closeups, and wildlife. A friend took this photo with my other camera: an iPhone 15 Pro. As you might guess, it was windy with a chill was in the air, even in late July. A glorious day, regardless!Wide view of the Hubbard Glacier where it meets the sea. We did not see ice calving off the glacier (too far away), but you can see pieces of ice floating all over the bay. The main glacier flows down a valley in the far right side of the photo; another, smaller glacier comes down the valley near the center of the photo to join it. The glacier is more dynamic than you might expect: sometimes it advances for years in a row and then sometimes it retreats. To be clear, the flow of ice is alway downhill towards the sea; it never reverses and moves the other way, even when the glacier “retreats.” So if a glacier retreats, that simply means that the edge at the sea is breaking off or melting faster than the ice flows downhill into the sea. Conversely, if the glacier advances, that means that the ice is flowing downhill faster than it can melt at its front edge, effectively pushing the front edge further and further forward.Part of the front edge of the Hubbard Glacier. The highest parts of this front edge tower at least 400 feet above the water line, giving you some idea of scale. Further back from the water, the glacier is quite a bit thicker as it flows down out of the mountain range. Ice dynamics on a large scale!
I like the greenish color you can see at the fresh face of the glacier.