Up Close and Personal, A Visit to Glacier Bay!

Glacier Bay National Park in S.E. Alaska!

Glacier Bay is located in the S.E. panhandle of Alaska. The bay runs north/south for about 65 miles between two peninsulas of Alaska from the inlet at Icy Strait. With an average width of 3 to 20 miles wide, Cruise ships can safely navigate up the bay to provide you with an outstanding views and photographic opportunities of a disappearing presence from the glacial period. Today, Glacier Bay and the surrounding land is the site of the renowned Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

Glaciers and Ice Bergs!

Glacier Bay contains 16 glaciers, 12 of which currently calve to produce icebergs in the straits and bays. As the glaciers retreat and plant life gradually moved in, The bay begins to take on a new look. Presently there is a fully fledged, 200 year old spruce and hemlock forest existing at the entrance to Glacier Bay where once more primitive plants such as mosses and lichens had been the only plant life at the head of the bay. As the result of current climate change due to global warming and unchecked uses of fossil fuels, glaciers are now retreating at a rate of up to a quarter of a mile per year, threatening this pristine wilderness to extinction.

Glacier Bay, A General Overview

No roads lead to the park and it is most easily reached by a variety of National Park Service ferries or by air travel to the small community of Gustavus. Despite the lack of roads, the park averages 380,000 visitors per year.

Glaciers descending from high snow capped mountains into the bay create one of the world’s most spectacular displays of ice and iceberg formation. The bay’s most famous glacier is probably the Muir Glacier, 2 miles wide and about 265 feet tall. All of Glacier Bay was covered by ice as recently as 1750.

The explorer Captain George Vancouver found Icy Strait, at the south end of Glacier Bay, choked with ice in 1794. Glacier Bay itself was almost entirely iced over. In 1879 naturalist John Muir found that the ice had retreated almost all the way up the bay. By 1916 the Grand Pacific Glacier was at the head of Tarr Inlet about 100 km 65 miles from Glacier Bay's mouth. This is the fastest documented glacier retreat ever. Scientists are hoping to learn how glacial activity relates to climate changes and global warming from these retreating giants.
Wildlife in the area includes bears, deer, mountain goats, whales, and waterfowl.

Icy Straits, A General Overview

The Icy Strait is a strait in the Alexander Archipelago in southeastern Alaska. The strait separates Chichagof Island to the south and the Alaska mainland, to the north. Icy Strait is 40 miles in width measuring from its west side at the intersection of the Chatham Strait and Glacier Bay to it east side at Cross Sound and the Lynn Canal.

Area History

The English explorer Captain George Vancouver found Icy Strait, at the southern end of Glacier Bay, choked with ice in 1794. Glacier Bay itself was almost entirely iced over. In 1879 naturalist John Muir found that the ice had retreated almost all the way up the bay. By 1916 the Grand Pacific Glacier was at the head of Tarr Inlet about 65 miles from Glacier Bay's mouth. This is the fastest documented glacial retreat ever. Scientists are hoping to learn how glacial activity relates to climate changes from the retreat.