Helicopter trip to the glacier

15 minutes in a helicopter, and we landed on the glacier tongue. This is one of the biggest glaciers in Alaska. Its length is 50 kilometers and the width of 3. He is constantly on the move and drag the huge stones from the tops of the mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Most of all I like the glaciers in amazing blue glow, punched out from under thin blankets of snow. One gets the feeling that you are in some kind of children's tale ...
18 ph © sergeydolya





Before the flight, we were given a special glacial shoes, we put over our shoes:



03



Unfortunately, this time I got a place in the back row, and it was very difficult to photograph:



05



Glacier is steadily receding, leaving behind a gorge (Fjord):



07



08



Ice formed in the glacier is not the same as the ice in our cooler. Once upon a time every winter It drops to 30 meters of snow. In the summer he did not have time to melt the whole, and snowy feather continued to grow up. The lower layers of snow under the weight of the upper were pressed so that turns to ice. This ice is 20 times harder than ice in our refrigerator.



On top of the glacier is covered with mud and stones - the top layer of ice melts and the dirt remains. Over time, it becomes very much, so on top of the glacier looks very dirty:



11



12



13



14



Water has the property that when it a lot - it becomes blue. Think of the sea - it is blue, but if you get water out of the sea in her hands, it would be transparent. It is the same with ice. If it's an ice cube out of the fridge, it is white and transparent, and if it is a huge glacier, we will see him in blue:



If under the glacier there is a stone step, then to slide down on it, the glacier cracked and there a gap:



They are very deep. We are thrown into one of these holes stone the size of a large watermelon, and he flew down 5 seconds:



On the glacier streams run. Melt water flows down, forming a river. Glacier blurs into dust under the stones themselves. This makes the stone dust muddy river, but if it settles, it becomes emerald hue



Source: