Today we saw the following; Black Bear @ Strawberry Island, Sea Otters, Steller Seals @ South Marble Island, could even smell them! Common Murre, Pelagic Cormorant, Brown Bear, Bald Eagle, Mountain Goat, Harbour Seals, and of course glaciers! The Lamplugh and John Hopkins.
The John Hopkins Glacier moves at 8’ per day and is 12 miles long; it’s 250’ high at the terminus with 1000’ below water! In the 1750’s glaciers completely filled Glacier Bay NP! They have now retreated about 60 miles. However, recently the glaciers on the western side of the park have started to grow again. This global warming thing is very complicated.
We are able to get very close to the face of the John Hopkins Glacier and you can hear it creaking and groaning; every now and then large chunks fall off, calving; they don’t look very big but when the waves hit the boat you know that they were large pieces of ice.
Glaciers everywhere as we exit the park, the clouds lift a little so that we are able to see some of the peaks that rise to 6000’ in the NP.
Later, back in the room Steve has a head splitting adventure; almost as good as Jeremy’s Dominican Republic crisis, but no stitches required; I will have a nice scar on my forehead!
No comments:
Post a Comment