What is so beautiful about a glacier?

Preparing for my Alaskian cruise next month and I saw pictures of glaciers and I read some posts that people find them beautiful. What am I missing about them? I get the history but I honestly don't get the beauty. I love the mountains and when I look at a picture of glaciers I appreciate the mountains but the glacier itself does nothing for me. Help me see the beauty about glaciers before my cruise. Thanks.:)

I think the blue coloring is amazing. And their massive size. But I get that not everyone appreciates them the way I do.

Here's my pictures from the Portage Glacier last year:

http://www.akstafford.blogspot.com/2013/07/portage-glacier-cruise.html

I think its one of those things that you have to 'be there' to finally get what everyone is talking about.

Pictures don't ever really do them justice, and the fact that they are almost a living breathing thing. That when you're near them, you experience them, you fee the cold air that surrounds them, hear them groaning and crackling. Then the crack and hissssssss of the falling ice.

I had the same questions about the fall colors and changing leaves. I couldn't understand why everyone was gaga about going 'leaf peeping' and what the draw was... Then I visited Arcadia Nat'l Park. It was very early in the season, the leaves were just starting to turn. We came around a corner, to a meadow that had 2 or 3 trees across the way that were in Technicolor... and I suddenly understood how people could be crazy for this piece of Nature's beauty. I think the same thing happens when viewing the glaciers.... it all clicks into place.... that its something that has to be experienced in person, before it can truly be appreciated in photos.

The first glacier I saw was in the Columbian Icefield on my way to Jasper. Massive amounts of ice piled high like a skyscraper, miles across like a multi lane highway, feeding water into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as the Gulf of Mexico.

Even from miles away, the enormity of some of the glaciers and knowing the role they played in our hemisphere gave me quite a humbling experience.

I saw a couple of relatively small glaciers in Alberta, Canada just past Lake Louise going towards Jasper in June of this year. They certainly were not of the magnitude of the glacier pictured in the post above. We were quite a ways from it as well so I did not hear any sounds from the glacier. Honestly it just looked like the melting snow banks in early April to me. Perhaps like one of the posters stated already, it's one of those things that I will get when I am up close and personal with it. Thanks for the picture, the info and the insight everyone.:)

Beauty is always in the eyes of the beholder, what looks like beauty to one, might look blah to another. I personal find beauty In everything,but thats me.,that's OK. Maybe you see it in person and have a diffrent oppion, maybe not, but you will at least get to see the magnitute of Mother nature and its strength. There you can walk away with at least the respect of the Ice.

Don't feel like the lone ranger... I too don't get as jazzed up about glaciers like many seem to, sort of seen one seen 'em all. I really enjoy the walk to Nugget Falls at Mendenhall Glacier, it is probably just as much about the falls, but the combination is spectacular! I've enjoyed Hubbard Glacier, the many glaciers in College Fjord and Glacier National Park. However, I still prefer cruising through the 3000 foot granite walls of Tracy Arm Fjord.

Some people love the colors, others the magnitude, others the sense of timelessness - ice age snow falling into today's oceans...

For me, at least, I get a lot of enjoyment out of the chaos of tidewater glaciers, e.g. -

And the sheer scale can be pretty awesome, too -

And flying over "rivers of ice," well...

THIS is nothing like a "melting snowbank"!

These photos were taken from a little point and shoot camera and don't even come close to doing it justice!

Preparing for my Alaskian cruise next month and I saw pictures of glaciers and I read some posts that people find them beautiful. What am I missing about them? I get the history but I honestly don't get the beauty. I love the mountains and when I look at a picture of glaciers I appreciate the mountains but the glacier itself does nothing for me. Help me see the beauty about glaciers before my cruise. Thanks.:)

Perhaps this picture of a glacier in Blackstone Bay might help. I'd also recommend checking out naturalist John Muir's work on glaciers over 150 years ago to give you a little perspective on the world of ice.

Finally, check out the movie "Chasing Ice" by James Balog with the Extreme Ice Survey in Boulder, Colorado.

The sound of the crackling of the ice and the shear size.....

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

I honestly think this is one of those things you won't "get" until you're next to one is all is glory. The sheer immensity, the beautiful blue color and the sound of the ice cracking. It is amazing but as they say, "seeing is believing'"

Hope you enjoy it

Kenn

Frankly, it isn't something easily described. :) I suggest you just wait and see what you think when you get there.

I do have to state, I have seen PLENTY of people who this is not of interest for on my Alaska cruises, including every one of the 4 I have taken just this year. So, if the case with you, I wish you still a great trip and enjoyment of some port activities or the ship.

As they say, different strokes for different folks. We adore things that our friends wouldn't go out of their way to see or view, and visa versa on other things.

Only you will know if you feel what others feels when you are in close proximity to the glaciers. At least you will have seen them because in some future years they will not be there for others to even decide if they like them.

for us it was the sheers magnitude of these things. Beautiful, that is in the eye of the beholder, some see the black dirt all over the edges and say, yacht, but others see the blue sheen, the immense size and the truly closeness to what this planet was once, a very long time ago.

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz267/Giantfan13/new%20alaska/alaskamain500.jpg

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz267/Giantfan13/ala8ff.jpg

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz267/Giantfan13/ala8g.jpg

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz267/Giantfan13/ala8gg.jpg

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz267/Giantfan13/ala9dd.jpg

Cheers

Len

I saw a couple of relatively small glaciers in Alberta, Canada just past Lake Louise going towards Jasper in June of this year. They certainly were not of the magnitude of the glacier pictured in the post above. We were quite a ways from it as well so I did not hear any sounds from the glacier. Honestly it just looked like the melting snow banks in early April to me. Perhaps like one of the posters stated already, it's one of those things that I will get when I am up close and personal with it. Thanks for the picture, the info and the insight everyone.:)

Karysa, my 1st trip to Jasper was in 1998, and when I returned 5 yrs later in 2003, the amount of receding that the glaciers had accomplished was tremendous. The naturalists said in 1998 that the warming cycle was a huge concern. The Columbia icefield had posted signs showing the position of the glacier's edge at different past years, and it really brought how the idea of how everything in Nature changes. I can only imagine how much more those glaciers have receded today or when you saw them in June.

Karysa, my 1st trip to Jasper was in 1998, and when I returned 5 yrs later in 2003, the amount of receding that the glaciers had accomplished was tremendous. The naturalists said in 1998 that the warming cycle was a huge concern. The Columbia icefield had posted signs showing the position of the glacier's edge at different past years, and it really brought how the idea of how everything in Nature changes. I can only imagine how much more those glaciers have receded today or when you saw them in June.

This is a picture I took of Portage Lake (at the foot of Portage Glacier, near Anchorage) that I took in the late 1970s. You'd basically never see icebergs like this anymore, and the glacier, which used to be viewable and walkable from the visitors center, now requires a boat ride to access.

It's something that you will probably understand after you have experienced it for yourself. It's not so much that they are beautiful, but rather magnificent and amazing.

You might like to see the Hubbard Glacier slideshow my wife put together with pictures she took on our Alaska cruise in August 2012 on the Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas.

Hubbard Glacier Calving

Happy cruising!

Wow. What great pictures and stories you all shared. My eyes have been opened to the beauty, strength and fragility of glaciers. I am looking even more forward to this trip now. Thanks :)