Glaciers, Man, & Flying Machines

Approaching McCarthy from the South after a Day of Exploration

While I was going through the images from the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains, I later discovered I had omitted some images? Some very important and deserving images, I might add. That happens occasionally when manipulating and organizing large numbers of images. But what was I to do?

Well, I’m a recovering perfectionist. :) And my wife couldn’t believe I wouldn’t dive in and do the whole video and collection over, after living with me for forty-two years. It’s evidence that I’m changing, and slowing down in my approach to life because I’m not doing that! :)

McCarthy Airport at the Foot of Two Combined Glaciers

Instead, I’m choosing to pause and consider those photos slowly and reflect on what we experienced there. Something that we experienced up close and personal, that’s not ordinary or common to human experience. Glaciers!

Here’s some interesting facts about glaciers that I have learned, after the fact. :)

[1] Presently, 10 percent of land area on Earth is covered with glacial ice.
[2] Glacierized areas cover over 5.8 million square miles.
[3] Glaciers store about 75 percent of the world's fresh water.
[4] If all land ice melted, sea level would rise approximately 230 feet worldwide.
[5] In the United States, glaciers cover over 30,000 square miles, with most of the glaciers located in Alaska.

Kennicott Glacier Left - Root Glacier Right

It was one (actually two) of these glaciers that surprised and astounded us greatly when we rounded a mountain near McCarthy, Alaska, July 29th, 2017. Our friendship flight of two Maule MX7s was drawn like a magnet to fly right up to the glaciers and then over them instead of landing immediately as we had planned.

The sight was awe inspiring and the sense of immensity and other worldliness has not waned. It couldn’t be processed at the time, or really since. But I felt OK with that. Just to be in close proximity to such a sight and phenomenon seemed so special and mystical that there wasn’t a feeling, with me at least, that it could be or should be understood, just experienced and appreciated… a new reality previously outside our experience. Majesty. Mystery. Marvel.

Flying North Up the Kennicott Glacier

That was our discovery flight so to speak, and our introduction to glaciers. We would spend two days and two nights at a lodge adjacent to the glacier, so close one could heave a rock onto the ice, seemingly to land amid all the other rocks?

On first glance it appeared the very large foot of the glacier was all stones of undetermined size, type, and origin - with very little ice. As it turns out exactly the opposite is true. The stone covering is provided by land slides on the mountains as the glacier slowly passes through, and stone that is scooped up from the valley floor as it passes with enormous force and embedded within. But that stone covering varies in depth from only a few inches to about 15 feet. The main component is below what you see and, in the case of the Root Glacier, is ice 1300’-4000’ thick! That’s right, what appears as rocks is actually a thin covering of the densest ice imaginable which is 1/4-3/4 miles deep.

Flying South Down the Root Glacier

And on further reflection it makes sense to the senses, as one can see pyramids with white ice sides jutting up among the rocks and cravasses each about 30’ or three stories tall.

That's enough minor descriptions and sparse facts of what is observable but not that well known nor understood. You can study these associated photos for yourself. And wonder and ponder as we did then, and since. :)

Flying Over the SaddleBack Between Two Glaciers

On our day of exploration in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, after seeing ice fields and glaciers to stagger the mind, we purposed to fly once again up the Kennicott Glacier, over a saddleback mountain onto the Root Glacier, then back down it past our home for the evening, Kennicott Glacier Lodge, for our landing in McCarthy.

The Root Glacier Looking North

These photos are only of that portion of the flight. I was very much impressed with the image quality of my Sony Alpha 55, but it must be noted the human eye is an amazing sensor that deals much better with the wild variations of light present in such an environment. Still I’m grateful to have the images for memory and reflection and study. I hope you find them interesting and joyful too. :)

Kennicott Mining Ghost Town

View of Glaciers North Over McCarthy

South Foot of the Root Glacier

 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, Or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,” (Job 38:22)



“From whose womb has come the ice? And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth? “Water becomes hard like stone, And the surface of the deep is imprisoned.” (Job 38:29–30)


[Click here for photos.]