Glacier day

I got a real education yesterday -- one that all the Flat Earth People should have.  Yes, the glaciers are melting and dying at an astonishing rate.

Nan took me for a drive in the morning to Kenai National Park and we walked through the woods to where a glacier used to be.  Along the way were signs showing where the glacier was in 18-something, then 1929 and 1957, etc. as we got closer to the glacier. We were walking where there had been ice and was now forest.

See all this gravel?  This was ice not very long ago.  See that glacier?  That is how far it has receded.

Nan told me that 20 years ago, the glaciers came much further down.  Now, most of the ones I saw looked like snowcaps, they were so far up the mountains. (see the one on the left of this photo)

You see blue in the ice because blue light waves are the only ones that don't get absorbed, so they reflect back.  

This is glacier ice which has broken off from the big one.  This is continually happening.

Here is Nan, holding a piece.  It is as clear as -- uh --- ice.

In the afternoon, I took a six-hour cruise (more about this further down) and of course, the drinks on the boat were made with glacier ice.  

Here is the harbor in Seward.  The  tree line stops at a certain point, and the rest of the mountain is bare.

The cruise's destination was the Holgate Glacier, which has not yet receded -- and I was very sad to think that someday, it will also be gone.  Scary.  Right now, it comes down to the water, as they all did once upon a time.  Nan tells me that there in the last 20 years, she has seen the glaciers shrink like crazy.   Here is the Holgate Glacier, which comes right down to the sea.  Gorgeous!!

President Obama will be in Alsaka in September.  He ought to bring a posse of those senators on the other side who don't believe in climate change and refuse to do anything about it.

Today, Nan and I are going back to Anchorage and I'll be there for the rest of the week.  I give a lecture to the Anchorage guild tonight and then we have a couple of more free days to go to the museums in Anchorage.  Class starts on Saturday.