If you go to Alaska you will see a lot of glaciers. You almost can't look at a mountain in any part of the state and not see two or three of them. They are all slightly different and unique in their own way so even though you may think you would get glacier fatigue after seeing 20 or 30 of them the truth is seeing the 30th one is almost as cool as seeing the first one.
After spending seven days exploring the interior of Alaska we flew from Fairbanks to Anchorage to get on a cruise ship and explore the southeast part of the state. Most of the cities in this part of the state are not accessible by road so the only way to get to them is by sea or air so cruising is the best way to get to tour these cities and see the natural wonders along the coast.
The first day on the cruise ship was a leisurely cruise into Disenchantment Bay which is home to the Hubbard glacier. It was good to have a quiet easy day like this after our first hectic 7 days. The Hubbard glacier is 6 miles wide and over 700 feet high. The mountains behind it are 8,000 to 10,000 feet high so it is really hard to appreciate the true size of this thing unless you are there. The ice that forms the glacier start as snow on the mountain tops 122 miles away and takes about 450 years to move down the slopes to the bay. This is one of the few glaciers that is growing and as the ship got closer you could hear it move. It sounded like small claps of thunder. The last time where were here is was pouring rain and cold. Today was yet another perfect sunny day so we stood up on deck as the ship hovered need the glacier.
Today there was a lot of calving and we saw a lot of big chunks of the glacier fall off and splash in the water. The sound of the tons of ice hitting the water sounded Thor's hammer as it had a loud thunderous sound.
We spend about an hour an a half at the glacier then cruised out of the bay towards Juneau.
The next day Juneau we had scheduled two tours. The first one was a hovercraft ride to a glacier. This was a lot of fun. We took a high speed ferry from Juneau to Taku bay then got on to hovercrafts to go to the Taku glacier. The weather was sunny and calm so the water of the bay was glass smooth which was perfect for the 6 person hovercrafts.
The reason they use hovercrafts to get to this glacier is because this particular glacier is slowly growing and mowing down a forest and wet land. In the process it is pushing a lot of silt that is coming out of the glaciers into mud banks and sand piles. The hovercrafts can go over the water and mud banks and get you right to the base of the glacier.
After parking the hovercrafts on the mud bank we climbed one of the large sand piles to get a closer look at the glacier.
We spend an hour exploring the glacier. While we were doing this one of the drivers of the hovercraft was panning for gold in the run off from the glacier and actually found a few flakes.
It turns out one of the more popular hobbies in Alaska is panning for gold. The average pannier make about $3200 a year. It does take a lot of knowledge and patience to find gold but I guess it can be a hobby that actually makes money.
After the Taku glacier trip we decided to do a evening whale watching cruise. The last time we were in Juneau we saw a lot of different whales which was really awe inspiring. We also saw some whales this time mostly Orcas.
But it was hard to anticipate where the would surface it was not easy to get a good picture. It was still a cool experience. The scenery was also amazing especially towards sunset.
So although it was another long day we were glad we took advantage of the many things to do in Juneau.
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