Travel Articles

Friday, November 06, 2009

This is because of how the sunlight passes through the ice and what happensto the sunlight.  Sunlight looks white; however, the light is really made up of all the colors of the rainbow.  You may recall seeing this when using a prism in middle school science classes.  Each of the sun's colors have different wavelengths, or amounts of energy in them.  When the sunlight tries to go through the solid glacier ice crystals the sun gets broken up into lots of colors.  Red and yellow have very little energy and the thick ice soaks up the red light more than it soaks up the blue light. The blue light has enough extra energy to get away from the solid ice crystals without getting absorbed or soaked up.  This is why the only color people see is the blue color that escaped.

Best Glaciers of Alaska:

• Grand Pacific Glacier (Glacier Bay National Park): Three intimidating walls of ice surround boats that pull close to the glaciers.
• Exit Glacier (Seward):  It towers above like a huge blue sculpture, the spires of broken ice are close enough to breathe a freezer-door chill down on watchers.
• Western Prince William Sound: On a boat from Whittier, you can see a couple dozen glaciers in a day. Some of these are the amazing tidewater glaciers that dump huge, office-building-size spires of ice into the ocean, each setting off a terrific splash and outward-radiating sea wave.

If you are planning to travel for 7 days, you can take a Glacier Discovery cruise which travels one way between Vancouver and Anchorage. You typically visit Kenai Peninsula, College Fjord, Glacier Bay National Park and the infamous Inside Passage.

Another option is to sail round trip from Vancouver.  Cruise the inside passage and visit both Tracy Arm and Glacier Bay National Park.

You can also sail from trip from Seattle, which is normally the best option in terms of airfare being the best rate.

Speak with a travel consultant that can assist you in choosing the right itinerary.