ALASKA CRUISE - GLACIERS

More than anything else, my reasons for going on this cruise boil down to one word - glaciers.  Melting around the world at an alarming rate, glaciers are phenomenons of nature, remnants of the last ice age.  So old that the snows making up their lower layers fell many tens of thousands of years ago, they seem so solid yet they flow like rivers and (as I'm sure you've heard on countless NatGeo programs) have shaped the landscape around humans since we have been, well, human.  There are still some in Glacier National Park, but you might want to hustle if you want to see them; the lower 48 may be glacier-free in a decade.

So the excursion I booked well in advance of sailing was the helicopter visit to a glacier out of the port of Skagway, one of the more pricey choices at $350.  Now at the time I booked this cruise in January I weighed nearly 280 pounds, and there was a surcharge for passengers on this excursion weighing over 250 pounds.  Helicopters can lift but so much, after all, and the altitude experienced flying over the mountain passes would reduce load capacity, as the air is less dense.  I did manage to lose 30 pounds by the sailing date, and went very easy on the food for the first days of the cruise, but it was not quite enough.  Fully dressed, I weighed in (yes, they do weigh you on a baggage scale) at 259.  So I paid the $100 surcharge without a qualm or quiver.  I was getting in that helicopter!  Here are some shots taken as we made the ~15 minute trip from sea level to the Chillicothe glacier, flying over some mile-high passes in the process.

We were landed on the melting lower end of Chillicothe, where guides showed us around.

 

 

 

 The big ice wall is actually the side of another branch of Chillicothe; the section we were on is melting under it.  The group shot is (from left) Alexis' fiancé Eliot, brother-in-law Bob, niece Adrienne, nephew Adam, and me.  Alexis was supposed to come but chickened out.  You do have to watch where you step.  Glacial melt finds it's way into cracks in the ice and erodes channels called mulians.  This one was a couple of feet across and had a significant flow of water.



By the bye, if any of you get the chance to do this, take along an empty water bottle.  The melt water is the purest you'll ever taste.  The other thing to note is that I was over-dressed.  I had a sweatshirt and windbreaker, plus the life vest they provided (part of the flight is over water), and I was very warm.  Dress light.

 

 

 

In addition to the excursion, the ship made a trip into a relatively narrow fjord to visit the end of the Sawyer glacier.  This was one time I'm sure there  was someone at  the  wheel of the Jewel.  And the ship demonstrated it's maneuverability by rotating in a channel barely twice as wide as we were long.  I was hoping we'd see a calving (an iceberg dropping off the end of a glacier) but no such luck.

This guy was a long way from civilization.

The little dots are seals.

 

 
 

These shots of glacial melt rivers show how close the ship was to the fjord walls.