Guys, I got to hug a glacier. A GLACIER, GUYS. It was amazing. But first, a canyon. It’s not mind-blowing or anything but I climbed a fairly steep hill to look at it so y’all gonna look at it too. Pretty pretty scenery.
First we walked out to a glacier that was breaking apart at the edge in massive pieces, like yacht-sized pieces.
I took a stop-motion video for about five minutes of the frost-barges heading out to sea.
That was lovely but my heart was set on snuggling with the ice so imagine my surprise when we walked about 100 feet to the beach and they they all were! Hanging out on the black beach being viciously pummeled by the ocean! It looked like a ship filled with tortured glass sculptures crashed and sunk and its booty washed up on shore. I was in heaven.
Some chunks were cloudy with bubbles and some were blue and some were crystal clear. I loved all the kinds equally.
But I think my most beloved type was the clear ones with soft pockmarking. Oh, so beautiful.
I took a ton of close-up photos. The way the light reflected through them was intoxicating. I wanted to stay all day, possibly forever.
Cricket and Mishi found a particularly cool piece. It was the size of a rowboat. Half of it was clear/blue and the other half was filled with dirt. Where is the dirt from? How old is the dirt? That dirt could be really old and from far away. The mind boggles at what that dirt has seen. It’s totally possible that it might have met the first settler from Norway in 800 A.D.
The ocean is so powerful and untamed it was batting these multi-ton chunks around like tennis balls. It was so humbling to be in the presence of raw nature.
Look at the gif below. As the wave comes in it shoves that ice boulder on the left like nothing. That thing was the size of an SUV, and the wave is all like, “Move, you’re in my way.” And the wave is practically on the beach and finished. Imagine the strength of the water further out.
To finish off “All Glaciers All The Time Talk,” the other three went on a glacier cave hike one day. I did not accompany them because climbing with crampons and sticks on an icy surface is not my jam but here are the pictures they took. Very beautiful. Very blue.
Coming up in the next post: fun story about how I almost drowned in the lamest way possible.