The glaciers of Alaska

After our immersion in the the northern Alaska via the Dalton highway, we naturally turned to the Pacific coast and especially the Kenai peninsula, known for its famous glaciers.

Alaska has more than 600 glaciers, mostly inaccessible. But since nothing resists to human, this precious and fragile treasure is fuels polluted and is becoming noisy with it luxuary tourism, for anyone in a hurry: cruise, boat, helicopter tour, everything is planned to see a max in a minimum time. Our luxury is to have time and hiking shoes to reach accessible glaciers at a modest price and some effort.

GLACIER PORTAGE
A short hike from Whittier makes it easy to see the front, which remains very distant, as it is declining from year to year.

An extra walk along the lake, an icy knee-high river crossing and a bit of climbing offered us a tense head-to-head with the high glacier.
Unstructured, broken, compressed forms build cathedrals with translucent and vibrant walls

Below, it’s a whole network of caverns, invisible, but audible: it creaks, drips, breaks, and falls.

We advance towards the front of the glacier, overlooking it. The blocks are detached from time to time and drift along the lake.
We spend the day here, alone, listening and recording this living glacier.

EXIT GLACIER
It is accessible from Seward, a small fishing town, for which we had a crush (blue sky, heat and northern lights as a bonus)

This glacier is also declining, but continuously, since 2006, winter and summer. The approach walk to observe the front is more and more longer and retraces 195 years of decline. The trail has experienced several extensions, but there will be no other, the glacial tongue being surrounded by a terrain considered too abrupt now. We opted for the harding field trail, an all-round hike of 12 km, to admire the ice field on the heights of the Exit glacier. After crossing a forest of dense poplars, grasslands with marmots, we finaly arrive in front of the immensity of the ice field. It can be said that this was a highlight of the trip, which is self-explanatory.

During this long contemplation, where we made a few recordings, out of nowhere, we see a runner in the distance, shirtless in shorts … We total hallucinate!

SALMON GLACIER

This glacier is located in Hyder, ghost town of former miner, end of the world border with the British Colombia. On the way, we discover Fish Creek, a salmon river and observation platform for Bears.

The road to the glacier is really bad, but it’s worth it. The icy tongue glacier was a perfect spectacle, admirable until the extinction of our fire.

BYRON GLACIER

It is located 50km from Anchorage, near the portage lake. We lingered on its ice cavities, to capture this particular sound and make a 360 phonography:

This post is also available in: Français (French)

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