North to Alaska [2014 - Day 5]

Glacier Bay National Park

Thanks for joining us as we look back 3 weeks ago today to Day 5 (September 10, 2014) of our voyage Seattle to Alaska and return. Today's schedule calls for us to spend almost all day, as the cruise line calls it, with "scenic cruising" in Glacier Bay National Park. No stops today except for boarding Park Rangers that will be our guides. For many cruisers this will be the highlight of the trip. In our opinion this is a place where it is pretty tough for photography to live up to the real experience. We're sharing just a small selection of photos we took, but honestly, they don't begin to do justice to "being there" in person. The scene is just too large and amazing.

Our photos begin in early morning as we're entering the Park. We've been amazingly blessed with mostly clear skies since leaving Seattle, but today we have cloud cover, although it isn't raining. The Rangers tell us we are still lucky! They say there have been many days when fog prevented seeing much of this spectacular scenery. The Rangers tell us they can only expect about 4 sunny days per month during the cruise season.

Today's weather conditions: calm and cloudy ... glad we have our warm jackets when out on the decks ...

Notice the ice and color of the water ...

The Rangers tell us these mountains were covered by ice at one time ...

Mountain tops in the clouds ...

The further into the Park we go, the more spectacular the scenery ...

Tidewater glaciers are glaciers that terminate in the sea. This is what most cruisers are excited to see and our first one is in the photo below ...

The photo below is the Margerie Glacier. This giant goes all the way from the water's edge up into the mountains in the distance.

Closer look at Margerie. There is a part of the glacier that, due to windy conditions, has been covered with soil from the surrounding area, so it looks dark ... when putting the binoculars on the area you can clearly see the ice (we zoomed in ... the next photo ... perhaps you can see what we're talking about).

If you are interested in knowing more about Glacier Bay National Park, we suggest checking out the Park website.  On the home page, left side, be sure to check out "View Park Map" ... you can zoom in and see exactly where Margerie Glacier is located.

We find it impressive how ice has molded solid rock ...

A glacier in retreat ...

Looking back as we depart ...

Thank you for stopping by John's Island.