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Alaska's Glaciers Are a Spectacular Force of Nature

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Alaska's Glaciers Are a Spectacular Force of Nature Glacier GRANDEUR Alaska’s glaciers are a spectacular force of nature By Eric Lucas patrick j. endres / alaskaphotographics.com Imagine a sheet of water the size of a small city. It’s made of long, winding ribbons, and broken tabs, of ice. Its cool-hue colors range from aluminum to cerulean. Immense forces cause it to flow down a narrow valley and fold over a small ridge just outside Juneau, Alaska, and finally crumble into a slushy lake. That’s the Mendenhall Glacier—one of the most visited glaciers in the United States— and I’m standing atop its lower end under an intense spring sun with freshets of water gushing past my feet. A glacier such as the Mendenhall is, in one sense, a geologic object—a monominer- alic rock, to cite a term sometimes used by glacier scientists. It’s also a 13-mile-long river of ice that’s actually moving downhill at a distinct rate, twisting and bending around stone mountains, gathering rock debris as it scrapes past. A glacier is com- posed of water, a malleable substance whose various phases—gas, liquid, solid— frans lanting / frans lanting stock are intrinsic to the shape of Earth’s land- the Barnard glacier (above), in Wrangell–st. elias national park, is striped with the debris scape. Since all forms of water can move, it accumulates as it flows down the mountain, merging with other, smaller glaciers. standing on a glacier with water running kayakers (previous spread) paddle the ice-laden waters of Barry arm in prince William sound, near the Barry, cascade and coxe glaciers. all around me leads me to wonder if one might ever actually see a glacier move. surface, so Denton leads us, four glacier azure. You cannot liken it to any sea ice or “Nah, not possible,” says our guide, trekkers, onward and upward, crampons snow or ordinary ice or, in fact, any other Corey Denton, who has spent years scram- gripping the ice, to peer into a crevasse material on Earth. bling along Alaska’s glaciers. “Understand- that marks a spot where the glacier’s huge It is, of course, just water, good old able you would ask, but no way can a tabs of ice have separated. Here, we are H2O, flung from the oceans to mountain glacier’s movement be seen.” quite close to the inner workings of the heights as water vapor and then snow, No way? Ice in the Mendenhall moves glacier, which include deep glacial ice not compressed by time and gravity into a (“flows,” glaciologists say) downhill about yet softened and fragmented by melting. unique crystalline structure that, while 525 feet a year. That translates to about 17 With sunshine slanting across the ice, it’s a superficially solid, is flexible in a fashion inches per day, which equals … Oh, it’s translucent gem whose exact hue defies glaciologists call plastic. moving just a little faster than about one- vocabulary—it is more vivid than teal, “To be exact, glacial ice is at the far end hundredth of an inch each minute. more translucent than turquoise, more of the visco-elastic spectrum,” explains That’s plenty stable for hiking about its intense than beryl, much greener than Shad O’Neel, a research geophysicist with alaska airlines magazine july 2011 37 the harding icefield trail (left) winds four miles through kenai fjords national park to a spectac ular view of the icefield. the exit glacier (below) age descends from the harding h icefield, adjacent to prince att m William sound. the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in Anchorage. O’Neel, an expert on calving glaciers—those glaciers where large chunks of ice break off from their terminal faces and fall into the sea or a glacial lake— is based at the Alaska Science Center; he calls glacial ice a “viscous fluid,” like honey. Most visitors call it “amazing.” Glaciers are among Alaska’s best-known and most popular natural attractions. There are thousands of glaciers in the Great Land. No one has created any exact count, partly because of definitional uncer- tainties: Where is the dividing line between glaciers and the icefields from which so many originate? The Menden- hall, for instance, is an outfall finger of the Juneau Icefield, a massive sheet of alpine patrick j. endres / alaskaphotographics.com ice that covers 1,700 square miles in the The USGS estimates that today the total “That’s a pretty staggering fact when mountains along the Alaska/Canada bor- area in the Great Land encompassed by you step out on the Bagley Icefield [in der. Up there, ice ranges from 800 feet to glacierized ice is about 35,000 square Wrangell–St. Elias National Park] and it nearly 3,300 feet thick—although, as mas- miles—an area slightly larger than Austria. seems like the surface of the moon, and it’s sive as that seems, it was once immensely The vast majority of that total is contained only a fraction of less than 1 percent of the larger. The Juneau Icefield, like the half- within the mountain ranges that ring the ice on the planet,” O’Neel says. dozen or so other major icefields in Alaska, Gulf of Alaska, including the Chugach and is a remnant of the Earth’s last major gla- Wrangell–St. Elias ranges, where storms experiencing alaska’s glaciers is fairly ciation about 10,000 years ago. Back then, deposit dozens of feet of snow every year. easy. While reaching the Bagley Icefield much of southern Alaska was covered in a If an area larger than Austria seems typically requires arduous wilderness continuous ice sheet that left only small impressive, O’Neel wants us to keep in trekking or transport by helicopter or light margins along the ocean coast. Today, mind the overall prevalence of freshwater plane, dozens of other Alaska glaciers can perhaps as many as 40 glaciers emanate ice (glaciers, as opposed to frozen seawa- be reached by short walks or by brief from the Juneau Icefield, which is also the ter) on Earth—about 90 percent of it is in excursions by boat or plane. Many glaciers accumulation zone (another glaciology Antarctica, about 10 percent in Greenland, are near or within major cities or tourist term) where prodigious snowfalls compact and less than 1 percent everywhere else, destinations. There are the Portage and into glacial ice. including Alaska. Matanuska glaciers, near Anchorage; alaska airlines magazine july 2011 39 numerous glaciers at Denali National Park; across the lake from the foot of the glacier, The light and weather and shape change. the Worthington, in the mountains above which is itself just 13 miles from down- “Calving is one of nature’s grandest Valdez; the Exit Glacier, reached by a short town Juneau. dramatic moments,” Craig adds. “It’s loud, hike near Seward; and the massive Hub- And here, inside the center, you can it’s huge, it’s blue, it’s ancient—it appeals to bard Glacier in Yakutat Bay, a favored stop clearly see the glacier move. Not with so many aspects of human wonder.” for cruise ships. Small-boat day cruises out the unaided eye, of course. Instead, an Calving is, indeed, grand—to see a of Seward and Valdez make glacier-viewing astounding time-lapse video created by tower of tons of ice peel away from its a major facet of their itineraries, and a science journalist James Balog shows, over glacier and collapse into the water is spec- multitude of aircraft operators offer flight- a three-year span, how the ice is flowing tacular, sudden and irrevocable. And, as is seeing around glaciers—some even landing downhill while its face is simultaneously so often the case when humans are view- on the ice or snowfields. retreating. ing nature, our perspective is influenced by Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Ice in the Mendenhall moves down our own sense of time. in particular, is one of Alaska’s best-known from its accumulation zone 13 miles uphill Consider the notion of speed. visitor destinations. More than 400,000 at the aforementioned 525 feet a year, so Then think of the word “glacial.” In visitors journey to this World Heritage Site the ice at its foot is anywhere from 80 to ordinary usage it means ponderously slow: each year to witness its seven tidewater more than 200 years old. But like the vast “Legislation works its way through Con- glaciers. The visitor center is in Gustavus, majority of glaciers—in Alaska and around gress at glacial speed.” As it happens, while a half-hour flight from Juneau, and virtu- the globe—climate change has put the I’m at the Mendenhall visitors center, I ally all the park’s visitors avail themselves Mendenhall in retreat, melting back 540 bump into Cathy Connor, a geology profes- of a scenic boat trip up the 65-mile-long feet last year. (To watch this video, visit sor at the University of Alaska Southeast, fjord. www.extremeicesurvey.org.) and we wind up discussing abstractions The Mendenhall Glacier is perhaps the “What I like best about the Mendenhall such as time and speed. To a geologist, most popular of all Alaska glaciers. Close is that it’s always different,” says Forest glaciers are not moving at that linguistic to half a million visitors a year come to the Service naturalist Laurie Craig. “It’s mov- “glacial speed” at all. U.S. Forest Service Visitor Center, a facility ing. It calves chunks of ice almost daily. “The Pacific Plate is moving at roughly 40 july 2011 alaska airlines magazine the same speed your fingernails grow,” different mechanisms.
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