Last night, I spoke with Dolphin Charters, the company that is running the Alaska Photo Workshop that I’ll be leading in a few weeks. One of the things they told me was that the ice at LeConte Glacier, one of our stops, is very good this year. That was good news … the last time I was there, the ice was also very good, creating a lot of photo opps. So, I’m getting pretty excited about the idea of being back there and photographing at this photogenic location. I decided I’d post a short pictorial of my last visit to LeConte Glacier today, so sit back, relax and enjoy!
As we cruised Frederick Sound in our jetboat, we pulled off into LeConte Bay and headed towards the glacier. Not long after entering LeConte Bay, we began seeing icebergs in the water, a sure sign we were not far away. Then we came upon a rather unusual iceberg, with a very unusual texture:
The jetboat’s captain said that the reason this iceberg looked so different, was because it had rotated “upside-down”. Thus, we were seeing what is normally underwater! As we approached, I grabbed some closeup images of this unique berg:
The next surprise was this Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) with a grand view of LeConte Bay:
As we approached the glacier, there were hundreds of Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) lying on the icebergs and swimming in the water …
… and we were even able to approach some of them very closely:
As I think these images will testify to, this is an awesome place … and I’m getting excited to be able to see it once again and to share it with other photographers. In another post, I’ll share some images of LeConte Glacier, another awesome feature at this location. It is rather large and does a lot of “calving”, or ice breaking off and falling into the water … another phenomenon that is wonderful to experience!