LeConte Glacier

The LeConte Glacier, from about 4 miles away.

Today is all about this glacier.   It is an active tidewater glacier; it is not receding, but it is thinning.   In historic photos, you can see that it was much taller than it is currently.   This glacier comes down from the left, makes a 90 degree turn and ends in the bay.   This turn is what has stalled the glacier's advance and also accounts for the fractured structure.

We had a five-hour tour with our wonderful guide, Kelly from FauneVoyage Tours (info@faunevoyagetours.com).   She is a Natural Biologist and was extremely knowledgeable about the area and the glacier.   We were lucky Karen found her.

That's Kelly in the middle between me (on the left) and Bill (on the right).

Enjoy these pictures, we certainly enjoyed taking them.

This is the research ship, Steadfast on the summer mission under the U of Oregon doing studies on the glacier.

The closest we got to the glacier was about 1.25 miles.   Yup, I know it looks like we are a lot closer, but we weren't.  For one thing, it isn't safe as this glacier is very active calving from both above as well as below the water.   We got to see a "shooter" which is a glacier fragment that calves from below come shooting up out of the water.   You would not want to be anywhere near it when this happens.

Selfie time, just to prove we were here!   This is Bill & Nicki

And, of course, your beloved authors of this highly regarded blog...

Relentless hunter that he is, Bill expertly stalked and captured an iceberg for cocktails later!   Yea Bill!

Sea lions on the Safe Water buoy!

Five hours later and back ashore we immediately jammed to the nearest restroom!   Then off to the local Mexican restaurant, El Zarape, for some remarkably good Mexican food.   We are a long way from Mexico and their food is very good.

We wrapped-up the day celebrating Bill's catch with scotch over glacial ice.   Interestingly, even after a few hours, this ice has barely melted.

And the scotch was good.

Oidhche mhath (pronounced "EE-hyeh vah")...