HUBBARD GLACIER

As part of the cruise, Celebrity took us to view the Hubbard Glacier. There is no town here; there is really nothing here save the Glacier and pristine wilderness. Hubbard is in a bay all to itself. The glacier is just immense. It is 6 miles across and hundreds of feet tall at the face, sometimes reaching over 1000 feet in height. Celebrity actually contracts to have a special pilot brought in to pilot the cruise ship in the bay. This special pilot is very familiar with the glacier and the water surrounding it. We were very fortunate on our viewing this day. The pilot was able to bring our enormous cruise ship within 0.6 miles of the face of the glacier - a record in Celebrity's book. The glacier is just unbelievably huge. And it's really difficult to get a good handle on it's size, especially when you are on a ship that is nearly 900 feet long and 14 stories tall.

The entrance to the Hubbard Glacier bay
One of many spectacular views in the bay
Shoreline in the Hubbard Glacier bay
More shoreline
One of the many snow capped mountains to be seen in the bay
Another spectacular view. Notice the chunks of floating glacial ice
Another spectacular view
One of several waterfalls to be seen on the way into Hubbard Glacier
Another spectacular view
Here you can see part of Hubbard. It's dwarfed by the majestic mountains rising up out of the clouds.
Here you can see Hubbard as it flows out from behind the mountains
Here's a wide shot of Hubbard. You still can't see all of it. Notice the calving in the center
Another view of Hubbard as it reaches the end of it's journey to the sea.
Notice the interesting flow of ice chunks from the face of Hubbard
Hubbard standing proudly at the end of it journey.
Another view of Hubbard. This was the southern most portion of the face of Hubbard that we could see. If one could go around behind to the right, there was quite a bit more to see.
 
Here, you can get a good feel of just how a glacier is a river of ice, as Hubbard is moving down the valley between the mountains.
Another view of Hubbard flowing between the mountains. Views like this were just breathtaking, and quite invigorating. The crisp air, cooled by glacial ice chilled your breath and nipped at your skin.
Here you can see Hubbard ending it journey to the sea. In the lower left you can see people standing against the railing of the Mercury taking in the spectacular view. We are about 0.6 miles away from the face of Hubbard.
Hubbard is just huge, but realtively small compared to the mountians the rise up above it.
Scenes like this are what will bring me back to Alaska.
Another spectacular view.
Here, you can see the jagged, volcanic ash covered surface of Hubbard.
A broader view
Another shot of the volcanic ash and jagged surface of Hubbard.
The jagged turbulent nature of a glacier is quite evident here.
Quite jagged. Notice the straification near the water
The blue color of the ice is almost fake in appearance, but it is quite real
 
Here Mercury departing the bay with Hubbard Glacier is the background.

As fortune would have it a small fishing boat with, I'm guessing here, 6 people aboard floated quite close to Hubbard. This really helps bring home how large this river of ice is.

A brave and daring sport fishing boat taking an up-close look at the face of Hubbard.
The small black spec between the island and the face of Hubbard is that same sport fishing boat. This really brings home the size of this massive river of ice.

The weather again was fantastic. It was 50 degrees and partly cloudy, little wind. Again, as fortune would have it, we got to see a couple very large calving's. Calving is when a chunk of the glacier breaks off and falls into the water. Of course when a piece of ice, hundreds of feet tall and hundreds of feet wide and hundreds of feet deep, falls into the water, you get a really big splash. And that is what we got. And was it ever spectacular. The splashes were nearly as high as the glacier itself.

Some small debris falling into the ocean.
A closer shot of the small debris falling into the ocean.
More debris falling in.
A rather large pile of debris with some good size chunks falling in.
There is a rather large boulder like piece of ice falling in. Notice how grey the splash is. This is caused by the ground up rock drug along by the glacier.
Another big grey splash
 
An enourmous piece of Hubbard calves
Imagine that little fishing boat being near this.
Another enourmous piece of Hubbard breaks of in dramatic fashion. There was a loud cracking sound that accompanied these large calvings.
The splash was just awe inspiring, but only lasted for a brief moment, then all was calm again.
Notice that the splash reaches up nearly as high as the face of Hubbard itself.

I shot everything on Velvia using the 100-400 zoom, And, I used my tripod. The only time on the trip I shot with a tripod. It was such a comforting feeling being able to mount the camera on top of the Bogen. I was once again, one with my camera. It was really quite Zen like.

A curiously deep blue piece of glacial ice floating by in the bay.
This piece of glacial ice is coated with volcanic ash.
Eerily beautiful
One might think that you were on another planet.
Here you can see the ice bridge of this iceberg
This iceberg looked as though it had an ice creature pearched upon it.
Another striking division of deep blue glacial ice
This large ball of ice was easily as big as an automobile.
The unusual mushroom shape of this iceberg caught my eye.
Another view of the mushroom
Notice the stratification on the left of this iceberg.

Skagway

 

Itineray

 

Valdez


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Unless otherwise indicated, all text and photos copyright1995-2000 John Engle