Glacier Cruising

This was Pat's perspective!  This red crane was visible from every vantage point.  It was enormous.

I may have mentioned that I tried to do the last trail to some extent.  It's a very long trail that suggests a time frame of 14 hours round trip, so I thought I'd just do 4 miles of it, that is until I went a mile in this:

Once I emerged from the alders and mud, into this lovely meadow (still mud), I decided this was as far as I'd go.  No glutton for punishment am I, so I took a few photo's of the area and promptly made my way back.  I was almost back to the car when a group of 3 ladies (daughter, mom, and grandma) met me and after telling of my decision, they were right behind me.  I did suggest they go on the Mineral Creek Trail that I did first and the seemed excited about that one!

Valdez is really spectacularly surrounded.  There is no way to capture it, but I still try!

Here begins our saga of my own personal "Glacier Cruise"!  We took the canoe to the Valdez Glacier, just 2 miles from our campground and set forth.  It was a bit breezy and cool, so the way into the glacier was choppy, but after our exploration, the wind died down and made for a lovely trip!  The glacier is mostly covered in gravel and rock debris, so we were less impressed with it's beauty.  It was still interesting.

I really can't get enough of this guy!

"Point!"

The glacier was broken up at the waterline and we canoed as far as possible before ascending the rock slides on one end.  Below you can see how the glacier sweeps back into the valley.  It seems this was the preferred method of gold seekers to travel into the gold/copper valleys beyond.

Why do I not wear makeup when I know I'll be photographed?  Oh dear, and that hair.  I look like quite the wild thing.  Someday I'll clean up and show that I can do that too!  In the meantime, we looked for and brought out a little rock for my mom, the rock collector!
Did I mention it was really steep?!

After throwing rocks at an ice outcropping on the glacier (yes, we are 7 years old at heart), we set out and decided to paddle about the moraine lake filled with icebergs.  We did have to pick off a few pieces of the glacier to taste!  It was cold!

It was really beautiful.
We canoed up to one of these floating islands of ice and found a little nook to get a closer look.  It was the most gorgeous clear blue.  The sounds were also fascinating.  It sounded like a constant tinkling of ice melting and water dripping down.  You could see the bubbles and water moving throughout the surface and even down below the water line.

He is just too good-looking.
Did I mention I'm claustrophobic?!

We capped our trip off with a little trip back in time to an abandoned crane that was left to rust.  It was really fascinating and like the 7-year-olds that we are, we had to play on it for a while before we left and went back home!