Juneau, Alaska Photo-Blog

2006-07-23T18:09:00.000-08:00

With Juneau in the distance over my shoulder, I read Middlemarch for Monday's Victorian Novels class.

2006-07-23T18:07:00.001-08:00

Cloads return

2006-07-23T18:07:00.000-08:00

Blue sky!

2006-07-23T18:06:00.000-08:00

vertically, 1/3 of a tributary canyon to Tracy Arm fjord--boat for scale

2006-07-23T18:05:00.001-08:00

Mediated experience

2006-07-23T18:05:00.000-08:00

Bare rock, massive icebergs dwarfing smaller ice boulders, harbor seals (for scale)

2006-07-23T18:02:00.000-08:00

Our boat thuds over the mostly submerged smaller icebergs (~6' across).

2006-07-23T18:00:00.000-08:00

Calving Glacier (Harbor Seals in foreground)

2006-07-23T17:59:00.000-08:00

Harbor Seal & Iceberg

2006-07-23T08:07:00.000-08:00

Harbor Seals

2006-07-23T08:06:00.000-08:00

Iceburg (thumb for scale)

2006-07-23T08:05:00.000-08:00

Striking Blues

2006-07-23T08:04:00.000-08:00

After weeks of "searching," the Wildness literature class finds it in the form of an orange bouy.

2006-07-23T08:02:00.002-08:00

Calving Glacier

2006-07-23T08:02:00.001-08:00

White Harbor Seal

2006-07-23T08:02:00.000-08:00

White Harbor Seal

2006-07-23T08:01:00.000-08:00

Shades of blue

2006-07-23T07:59:00.001-08:00

Glacial Reflection (seals for scale)

2006-07-23T07:59:00.000-08:00

Glacial Reflection

2006-07-23T07:58:00.002-08:00

Glacial Reflection

2006-07-23T07:58:00.001-08:00

White Harbor Seal

2006-07-23T07:58:00.000-08:00

Harbor Seals

2006-07-23T07:57:00.000-08:00

...crashes into the sea as the glacier calves.

2006-07-23T07:56:00.000-08:00

Rich Blue

2006-07-23T07:55:00.001-08:00

Harbor Seal

2006-07-23T07:55:00.000-08:00

Touring Boat for Scale

2006-07-23T07:54:00.001-08:00

Raw bedrock exposed in the last 3 years.

2006-07-23T07:54:00.000-08:00

Nature: The Work of Art

2006-07-23T07:50:00.000-08:00

Harbor Seals

2006-07-23T07:49:00.000-08:00

The fjord.

2006-07-23T07:47:00.000-08:00

S. Sawyer Glacier descends out of the fog

2006-07-23T07:43:00.000-08:00

Iceberg reflection

2006-07-23T07:38:00.001-08:00

Elizabeth for scale

2006-07-23T07:38:00.000-08:00

Crown Iceberg

2006-07-23T07:37:00.000-08:00

Crown Iceberg Profile

2006-07-23T07:36:00.001-08:00

Iceberg close-up

2006-07-23T07:36:00.000-08:00

Slotted Iceberg

2006-07-23T07:35:00.000-08:00

Iceberg close-up

2006-07-23T07:34:00.003-08:00

Iceberg close-up

2006-07-23T07:34:00.002-08:00

Iceberg close-up

2006-07-23T07:34:00.001-08:00

Iceberg close-up

2006-07-23T07:34:00.000-08:00

Iceberg close-up

2006-07-23T07:33:00.001-08:00

Iceberg close-up

2006-07-23T07:33:00.000-08:00

Iceberg close-up

2006-07-23T07:32:00.000-08:00

Gloriously Textured Iceberg

2006-07-23T07:31:00.001-08:00

Summer time.

2006-07-23T07:31:00.000-08:00

Ice Orb

2006-07-23T07:30:00.000-08:00

Iceberg

2006-07-23T07:13:00.000-08:00

S. Sawyer Glacier (30 miles of ice, 6 to the Canadian border, breaking off at a rate of 60 feet a day)

2006-07-23T07:10:00.001-08:00

Icebergs

2006-07-23T07:10:00.000-08:00

Icebergs

2006-07-23T07:06:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth for scale.

2006-07-23T07:05:00.001-08:00

Freshwater spray.

2006-07-23T07:05:00.000-08:00

A pushy creek surges to the sea.

2006-07-23T07:04:00.000-08:00

Mist rises out of a wider valley.

2006-07-23T07:02:00.000-08:00

A glacier was here not long ago: steep grooved bedrock & scraggly secondary succession.

2006-07-23T07:01:00.000-08:00

The streams cut narrow chasms in the steep canyon walls of Tracy Arm fjord.

2006-07-23T06:59:00.000-08:00

thin waterfall

2006-07-23T06:57:00.000-08:00

Iceberg dead ahead.

2006-07-23T06:56:00.000-08:00

Iceberg

2006-07-23T06:55:00.000-08:00

We pass icebergs in the fog.

2006-07-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

Countless streams cascade down to the ocean.

2006-07-23T06:52:00.000-08:00

Aboard the "Wild Alaska," friends and I read George Eliot and the Bible on our way to S. Sawyer Glacier up the fjord Tracy Arm.

2006-07-23T05:45:00.000-08:00

"Wild Alaska"

2006-07-21T16:29:00.000-08:00

My body heat contributes to the melting process.

2006-07-21T16:28:00.000-08:00

subglacial / superterrenian stream (created the ice cave)

2006-07-21T16:26:00.000-08:00

ice arch

2006-07-21T16:25:00.000-08:00

close to the glacier, mineral-rich detrital mud, the product of the constant grind

2006-07-21T16:23:00.000-08:00

from within an ice cave

2006-07-21T16:22:00.000-08:00

fresh bedrock: grooved and smoothed; bare of lichens thus far

2006-07-21T16:21:00.000-08:00

3,000 year-old mulch preserved and released by the ice within the last year.

2006-07-21T16:19:00.000-08:00

pock marks; both beautiful and disturbing

2006-07-21T16:18:00.000-08:00

It's good to be alive!

2006-07-21T16:17:00.000-08:00

Brian O'Shea for scale

2006-07-21T16:16:00.000-08:00

Electric blue: the massive pressure glacial ice exerts on itself results in the expulsion of oxygen molecules, leaving pure frozen water which is naturally blue

2006-07-21T16:11:00.000-08:00

Return from the edge

2006-07-21T16:09:00.000-08:00

Sublimity

2006-07-21T15:19:00.000-08:00

The union of the blue and the grey.

2006-07-21T15:16:00.000-08:00

Steep and slick bedrock (Brian O'Shea for scale)

2006-07-21T15:15:00.000-08:00

Leading edge (Zoe Roben & Brian Tippy for scale)

2006-07-21T15:12:00.000-08:00

On the retreat, the glacier was here 3 years ago.

2006-07-21T15:11:00.000-08:00

glacial crevasse

2006-07-21T15:10:00.000-08:00

Mendenhall Glacier (Searching for Wildness class for scale)

2006-07-21T15:09:00.000-08:00

Looking back, each ridge hides an exponential variety and quanitity of vegetation.

2006-07-21T15:06:00.000-08:00

Cathy and Erin Connor (geologist, biologist; mother, daughter) take the Wildness class on a "fiesty" hike in the rain. Beginning in a successionary coniferous forest, we pass through a much younger alder forest out onto bedrock only recently uncovered by Mendenhall Glacier.

2006-07-15T22:31:00.000-08:00

Amanda Reidenbaugh, Jaime Wolfe, and I clear our heads before getting back to work

2006-07-14T21:28:00.001-08:00

lupine

2006-07-14T21:28:00.000-08:00

lupine

2006-07-14T21:27:00.000-08:00

orchid close-up

2006-07-14T21:26:00.000-08:00

orchid

2006-07-14T21:06:00.000-08:00

kettle pond: created by a grounded iceberg stranded after the natural draining of the lake.

2006-07-14T21:04:00.000-08:00

grounded iceberg

2006-07-14T21:03:00.000-08:00

Fused glacial ice crystals -- all that are left from a larger iceberg.

2006-07-14T21:02:00.000-08:00

Mendenhall Glacier

2006-07-14T21:01:00.000-08:00

Step out onto the beach to look across the lake at the glacier which stretched 2.5 miles across the lake less than 100 years ago.

2006-07-14T20:58:00.000-08:00

Lichens and mosses colonize the detritus, bringing nitrogen to the soil, inviting new growth of alder and willow.

2006-07-14T20:55:00.000-08:00

Matt Brooks

2006-07-14T20:54:00.000-08:00

Walk with naturalist Matt Brooks through glacial succession land below Mendenhall

2006-07-14T19:58:00.000-08:00

Wildness translates to "levity."

2006-07-14T19:56:00.001-08:00

Wildness found.