Walking Through an Ice Garden in Alaska

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Endless ice formations. It is like nature's personal ice sculpture garden.

Exploring ancient chunks of ice, once part of the giant Columbia Glacier, now stranded and slowly melting on this rocky moraine.

Michelle, posing in front of our boat, while surrounded by beautiful natural works of art.

Our boat, dwarfed by the towering ice.

I climbed ontop of a stranded iceberg to get this angled shot of my group.

Team extreme for our shorewalk among the ice garden.

The tide was so low that we were finding sea stars and sunflower stars on our walk.

Beautiful red version of a sunflower sea star.

Michelle, using a beautiful ice sculpture as a temporary arm rest.

Panorama of the ice-choked fjord leading to Columbia glacier. No boats are going to get through this for awhile.

Our stranded ice sculptures all came from the Columbia glacier.

This was my artsy shots from our walk. I shot this under and through an iceberg with a big arch in it, framing the ice beyond.

There was all kinds of formations. No two were the same. Some of the ice also had this glass-like look.

It was a rainy, cloudy morning, but that just brings out the blues in the glacial ice even more.

Two guests soaking it all in as they explore the ice garden.

The rocks made walking a little difficult, but they were a stark contrast to the light colored ice above. Hiking poles also helped.

The misty mountains in the background give a certain mystique to the scene.

Large blue chunk of ice, stranded by the receding tide.

Pinks, green, and blue combine for a wild photo.

* Beautiful chunks of ice with scenes of Alaska behind.*

My group having fun in the ice.

Diane posing in front of an impressive piece of ice.

Today was a rollercoaster of emotions. We are in the middle of a week long expedition cruise in Alaska's Prince William Sound. We were supposed to go check out the second largest tidewater glacier in Alaska, Columbia Glacier, but we were stopped by an impenetrable wall of ice, 13 miles long. So at this time, no one is getting anywhere close to the face of that glacier. It must have dumped so much ice during the winter season. We may not be able to get back there all year. So those hopes were dashed very early in the morning. As expedition leader, its up to me, in these situations, to come up with plan B. Our normal path between the mainland and Glacier Island was also blocked with ice. Dang. It was low tide. And there was a lot of ice. Hmmm. This could make for some epic shorewalking among pieces of ice that get stuck on the rocky shoreline. And this is what we ended up doing.

We found an anchorage in a new spot called Heather Bay. It had some ice in it, but the shoreline the bay shares with Columbia Fjord was packed with ice. It was the longest and largest ice garden I've seen. There was every imaginable shape, and that deep glacial blue color of some of the ice has got to be one of my favorite colors. We spent over an hour and half meandering through the ice garden, awed by nature's designs. The fact that this will all change with the next high tide made us appreciate this fleeting moment that we were able to experience. These photos will never be recreated, even if we go back to this spot at low tide some other time.

As we walked around we started to notice sea animals in the tidepools around us. Sunflower stars with nineteen arms were picked up and passed around, while the fireworm was just pointed at from a distance. A couple of sea otters strained to hold their heads up high to see what these strange humans were doing on land. And a couple of black oystercatchers squawked loudly from their perch on a tall rock. The entire scene was magical and mystical, fleeting and warmly accepted by the entire group. We may have made it back to the boat with frozen hands and drenched rain gear, but that will dry, the memories will stay forever.

Richard heading to the birds.