CME Cruises Visiting Hubbard Glacier

Hubbard Glacier is not a port of call in the traditional sense; it is a destination for pure observation, a slow-motion encounter with one of nature’s most powerful forces. There are no towns, no tours, and no tenders to shore. The entire experience unfolds from the deck of your ship as it navigates the ice-strewn waters of Disenchantment Bay. The glacier itself is a spectacle of scale. At its terminus, the river of ice is over six miles wide, with a face that towers up to 400 feet above the waterline. Its most striking feature is its color—a deep, incandescent blue that seems to glow from within, a result of ancient, densely compacted ice absorbing every other color of the spectrum. The experience is auditory as much as it is visual. Listen for the sharp crack and deep groan of the ice, a sound that precedes the dramatic spectacle of calving. When a skyscraper-sized block of ice shears off and crashes into the sea, the sound, often called “white thunder,” echoes across the bay. This is a living, moving landscape; unlike most Alaskan glaciers, Hubbard is advancing, slowly pushing its way into the bay. Find a good vantage point, perhaps with a warm drink and binoculars, and simply watch. It is a profound, humbling display of geological time in action.