Sailing around the southern tip of Admiralty Island we stopped to explore some outcropping limestone islands for caves in a small skiff. This shot is looking back across the limestone towards the dramatic East coast of Baranof Island. It is hard to convey the ruggedness of this part of South East Alaska in an image. Let me know what you think? Alaska, USA
An iceberg stranded at the end of LeConte Bay where it meets Frederick Sound. While the bay itself is 247m (810 ft) deep, an underwater terminal moraine stretches across the mouth of the bay. This shallow ridge marks the LeConte glacier’s greatest geologically recent advance and traps the largest icebergs as they float out into Frederick Sound. As seen here the tidal zone of the icebergs themselves are repeatedly exposed to the rise and fall of the water line as they rest on the bottom. This floods any trapped air in the ice exposing a deep blue hue which provides a stark contrast to the white tip of the berg which floats above the water line at high tide. The bay is a 12 mile-long fjord which feeds into Frederick Sound. Le Conte glacier has retreated 4km (or 2.5 miles) since 1879 and being south of the 57th parallel north, remains the southernmost tidewater glacier of the Northern Hemisphere. South East Alaska. USA
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” John Muir. Reflections abound in a very calm morning passing though the ice fields of LeConte Bay, a 247m (810 ft) deep bay east of Frederick Sound in South East Alaska that is fed by the LeConte glacier. The famous naturalist and environmental philosopher John Muir travelled several hundred miles by canoe to visit the bay in 1879 and documented the local Tlingit name for the bay as Hutli. Hutli, translating to “Big Thunder”, was the name for the mythical thunderbird that produced sounds of thunder when it flapped its wings. This no doubt resembled the thunderous noise the glacier makes when it calves ice numerous times a day. The bay and glacier were named after Muir’s close friend, Joseph LeConte, a geologist at the University of California in Berkeley. This spot would have been covered in solid ice when Muir visited as the glacier has retreated 4km (or 2.5 miles) since 1879. Alaska, USA.
