Glacier Bay, Alaska

After an exhausting and very late day in Juneau, we woke early the next morning to scenes like this while we ate breakfast on our private deck...

We were heading towards Glacier Bay National Park. While we ate, we continually clicked away on our cameras as the landscape changed to that of beautiful mirror like waters and stunning scenes of rocky mountains, snow & ice. The magical world of snow and ice become more and more spectacular until we reached to toe of the Margerie Glacier.

The Margerie Glacier, a tidewater glacier, was a sight to behold. It is 34 km long and 1.6 km wide and is named after Emmanuel de Margerie, who visited the bay in 1913. It begins at the south slope of Mount Root and flows into Tarr Inlet.

It is the cleanest glacier in Glacier Bay and also one of the most active glaciers for "Calving" (breaking and dropping of ice walls into the sea). The sound is like that of cracking thunder, followed by a rumble and splash as the ice drops into the bay.
The ship stopped here for about an hour slowly rotating 360 degrees so everyone could see. On the bow, staff served biscuits, cheese, champagne & mugs of hot chocolate.

On the miniature icebergs we saw Terns, Gulls and colonies of Sea Lions.

The reflections were as stunning as the landscape...

We were blessed again with more blue skies and subtle cloud formations...

It wasn't long until we were on the move again to John's Hopkins Inlet to marvel at another glacier.

This is the Lamplugh Glacier; a 13km long tidewater glacier with a width of about 1.21 km at the water face. It rises to height of 46-49 m with depth of 3-12m at the waterline.

Here we rotated for another hour, so everyone could enjoy the view from the bow, stern or their private balconies (if they were as lucky as we were).

While in Glacier Bay, we also passed quite close to the Reid Glacier. There were occasional sightings of whales.
This was a magical day in a vast untouched wilderness of snow and ice.

Linking with these memes: