The glacier is singing, at least if you like modern music. Alaska composer John Luther Adams won the Pulitzer Prize for Music with his symphonic composition “Become Ocean” about glaciers becoming part of the sea. It has been performed by the Seattle Symphony. It is a powerful work but equally powerful is the cry of the Hubbard Glacier itself, becoming ocean.
The cry of the glacier is a combination of “snap, crackle and pop” with “boom, crash, and splash” at the crescendo and a coda of lapping water against growlers, icebergs and the sides of ships. On Westerdam there is an unfortunate counterpoint of pop music blaring from the poolside bar. I asked a barman if he could turn it off, he said I was not the first person to ask but… no. So, we hear “Snap, crackle, pop, boom, crash, spash, boom chicka, boom.” The hits of the 70s, 80s and 90s competing with the eternal sound of a glacier becoming ocean.
These pictures are a series of shots, taken in quick succession, of the face of the glacier falling into water in several different pieces, and, then, as the tide went out, some of the remains sitting on glacial till where the tide erodes the glacial face as it runs past the narrow entry from Disappointment Bay to Russell Fjord.
Ah, Hubbard. My favorite glacier. Seems to have been a beautiful day there, too.
I have come to hate how HAL has music (usually too loud music) in all the public areas from early morning until late at night. There is hardly a place one can go and get away from it. It detracts from the grandeur of a place like Hubbard Glacier.