It’s easy to become blasé about somewhere you’ve been to several dozen times, no matter how fantastic. I mean, if you live in San Diego, how often do you honestly go to the zoo? If you live in Victoria – when was the last time you went on a non-work related trip to Buchart Gardens?
So to it is, with Alaska.
And then, suddenly, it surprises you.
Suddenly, a path opens up in the normally (notoriously) ice-choked waters of Disenchanted Bay that allows your ship to drift in so close that it feels as if you could reach out and lay your fingertips against the wall of ice that is the Hubbard Glacier. And you look up from your desk and suddenly are struck with this vision of white, rising out of the water like a sugar and ice palace in a fairy tale and it’s sunny out – something that happens so rarely in this area that in and of itself, that’s incredible. And the sun means one very important thing for glaciers: it makes them calve.
So it is that you find yourself standing out on the bow, feeling the ice-chilled breeze blow the last of the cobwebs out of you the corners of your mind, with the tantalizing smell of mulled wine dancing on the air, and the taste of raspberry flavoured hot chocolate (your first, and only of the week – because after all you are on a budget) still on your tongue – standing there, holding your breath with everyone else, waiting.
And when it comes, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt why the natives of this area called the process of calving “white thunder”. You’ve never heard such a sound. A resounding thundering , crystalline ***CRACK*** that rattles the water and makes the bow shudder…
As if Alaska is saying to you “wake up! I’m not finished with you yet…”
The entire time I was in Alaska last year, with all the trips we took to Glacier Bay (which I dreaded for a variety of reasons), I never once experienced a glacier calving. For those of you who don’t know the terminology, calving is the name for when an iceberg falls off the front of the glacier. In a glacier the size of Hubbard, it’s the equivalent of a 35-story building collapsing to the ground.
Truly, it is incredible. Those of you who know me well, know that I have difficulty with glacial areas. Not because of the glaciers themselves, but for a whole host of other reasons that I don’t really want to go into here – but this afternoon? This afternoon – for that brief five minutes I stole away from work – was so very much worth it.
Bright blessings,
Shaughnessy
Glad you were able to see the beauty in the glacier, beyond the the Gigantic fear that it could cause you. 🙂