Hey Folks,

So ya can’t go to Yakutat without a trip up to get some Hubbard Glacier photos. I wanted to do a flight-seeing trip to shoot this glacier, but the light wasn’t that great. And when the light was great, I was out at the beach. I need to get back down there and shoot some stuff of this glacier from the air to complement the images I got from lower down.

The Hubbard is one of the most visited glaciers in Wrangell-St. Elias – you can’t really do a book on Wrangell-St. Elias National Park without at least some photos from the Hubbard Glacier.

What I ended up doing was hooking up with a boat charter, and riding up Disenchantment Bay with Mark Sappington, from the Yakutat Boat Charter company. Mark was great. We went up the bay, and then got thwarted by the ice – it was pretty thick up there. He said one of the big worries, especially with the tide coming in, is that you get up close to glacier, hang out a bit, turn around and you’re stuck, because the ice pack has built up around you. “Shackleton” comes to mind. I’d had enough excitement for my 2 week trip with the bear at Icy Bay, so I wasn’t too intent on getting too close – though I was disappointed we couldn’t get right up to the glacier.

We hung out in this area a bit, I shot some really bad images of Black-legged kittiwakes (gull-like birds). Whilst shooting those, the ice opened up, and it looked like we might get a little closer to the Hubbard. What the he**, it’s only money, right (the boat is chartered by the hour)? Why not?

Cheers

Carl