Exploring Tracey Arm Glacier

Icebergs in Tracy Arm.

The ice at the base of the glacier has this deep blue color.  The ice is under so much pressure that all the oxygen is squeezed out of the ice.  This results in a prism effect in which all light is absorbed except the blue spectrum.

Notice in the lower right hand corner "Sojourn," a huge charter yacht from Orca Sailing and Yacht Charters .  The vessel is making its way through the bergie bits, small pieces of the glacier which have broken or calved off.  Click on the hyperlink to learn more about the vessel.  There are some great pictures of the inside of the vessel.  We ran into the boat several more times during our trip in Alaska, they are very friendly people.

The yacht in the picture at left, "Sojourn," is 130 feet long and is still over 1/2 mile away from the face of the glacier.  This gives you a perspective of how large the glacier is.

More blue ice on the icebergs which have fallen from the glacier.

Several people from "Sojurn" took inflatable kayaks out to get closer to the ice.  It appeared they got within 1/4 mile of the ice.  The significant danger is that when house size chunks of glacier fall into the water, they create waves which are over 30 feet tall.  This would easily swamp the kayaks.  The water was 47 degrees, in this temperature you would loose your ability to move in 5 to 10 minutes and be dead in 40 minutes.  They had a motorized dinghy circling around to assist if anyone got into trouble, but I would think the 13 foot dinghy would have the same trouble in a large wave as the kayaks.

Each iceberg is unique in its shape, size, and texture. These icebergs are probably the size of a house, and you can see on the photo below the interesting texture this one has.