The Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay, Alaska

When my husband and I boarded the Coral Princess Cruise ship in Whittier, Alaska, we were excited to begin this part of our land/cruise journey in Alaska in mid-June.

The boarding process for the cruise ship was very organized. We had time to unpack, walk around the ship to get familiar with it and take some photos of the port of Whittier from the deck--all before dinner. 

Whittier is located within the Chugach National Forest, the second-largest national forest in the U.S.  Until the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel opened to public access in 2000 --see my prior post-- connecting Anchorage to Whittier, the only way to reach Whittier was by rail, boat or plane.  Our tour bus driver told us that Whittier is the wettest city in Alaska and the United States and the winds in its bay are so strong in winter that most of its residents live within the 14-story Begich Tower apartment building and schoolchildren travel to school through a tunnel that connects to their school.

We set sail along the coastline of Alaska and sailed through the night...

 ...into Yakutat Bay

There, in the distance, you can see part of the Hubbard Glacier that is located in Yakutat and Disenchantment Bay

We had paid for an optional excursion that would take us to the face of Hubbard Glacier by a smaller ship.  Hubbard Glacier is a natural wonder and quite a breathtaking sight!  It is the largest tidewater glacier in North America.  At 76 miles long and 1,200 feet deep, it is 25% larger than the state of Rhode Island. The line where the glacier meets the sea is 6 to 9 miles wide.  The glacier was named after Gardiner G. Hubbard in 1890. He was the first president of the National Geographic Society and regent of the Smithsonian Institution.

After hundreds of years of snow falling and gathering in the same place, glaciers form from the mass compression of snow on snow, crystalizing into ice from the pressure. When the glacier’s weight eventually becomes too much on itself, the bottom layers of the thick crystallized snow pile deform, and the newly-formed glaciers advance downward from their typical high-altitude birthplaces and swallow everything in their way, grinding it all into silt moraines as they move. Their movement can change the topography by carving valleys and lakes out of the earth.

Although many glaciers in the world are retreating from the warmer temperatures of climate change, Hubbard Glacier is an exception. Despite the worldwide trend of shrinking glaciers since the 1940s, Hubbard Glacier has actually been thickening as it continues its advancement into Disenchantment Bay and beyond.  It has been nicknamed the "galloping glacier."

Sometimes, when the weather is cold, or lots of ice has calved from the glacier into the water, it can be difficult to navigate the ship through the ice chunks to get as close to Hubbard Glacier as most ships would like.  Happily, our excursion ship was able to navigate around the ice.

The advancement or retreat of a glacier’s terminus depends on the snowfall that melts down or flows from its catchment basin. Hubbard Glacier’s catchment basin is in the Saint Elias Mountains which has a big accumulation area. The snow that falls in the basin either melts or flows down to the terminus, causing Hubbard to steadily grow. 

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In addition, Hubbard is building up a large moraine, which pushes sediment, rock, and other debris from Earth’s surface onto the glacier’s leading edge. The moraine at the front gives the glacier stability and allows it to advance more easily.

Blue ice occurs when snow falls on a glacier, is compressed, and becomes part of the glacier. Air bubbles are squeezed out and ice crystals enlarge, making the ice appear blue. The ice at the glacier’s terminus will calve, or lose ice chunks of itself that dramatically split off the main glacier mass and fall into the water. They leave everyone who sees the drop filled with awe!

As you can see in the photos above some ice just fell into the bay with a large splash! The glacier face is 400 feet tall, so some icebergs that calve off into the water can be the equivalent size of 3 to 4 story buildings!

If you click on the video above which is on my Mille Fiori Favoriti facebook page--make sure your sound is on and there is no x by the speaker icon--the direct link is here--you will hear the loud crack the ice makes as it calves and then you will see the ice fall into the water. It is an exciting sight to see!

Our excursion ship stayed quite a while in the bay as we all observed the action of the glacier.

What a beautiful and amazing sight it was!

The ship also sailed close to the fjords which were green with growth and filled with many seabirds!

There were so many interesting land formations and many, many bird nests on the hills and birds flying over the water and sitting on chunks of ice floating in the water.

We eventually sailed back to our cruise ship as the excursion tour narrator told us interesting facts about the Hubbard Glacier and the surrounding area.

We reboarded our Princess ship for more exciting adventures ahead!  Our next stop would be Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve--my next post.

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