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Pursuits Their job is to monitor and protect parts of the national forest that are designated wilderness: lands managed to retain their pristine condition.  Maybe
this isn’t such a good idea,” I thought nervously as
I wedged my paddle between two ottoman--sized icebergs. They were
translucent--blue and among the smallest bergs jammed against my
kayak--the largest was toward the bow and was more sofa-sized, to
complete the living-room set.Ice and fiberglass scraped together as I drove my paddle between the bergs and rocked my boat from side to side, loosening the ice at my bow. Ahead, dense ice concealed the water for a half-mile, and behind me, more ice had engulfed an opening I’d used only 10 minutes earlier. But that wasn’t my main concern; I’d pushed through dense ice before. The big deal was the 200-foot-tall glacier about a quarter mile to my right--an uneven wall of blue and white ice about a mile long. For about a minute, ice had been falling from both sides of one of its giant pillars, smacking the water with reports like gunfire. The pillar--weighing thousands of tons--leaned precariously over the water. “It’s not so dense about a hundred yards to your left--if you can get there,” radioed my co-worker Malinda Lueck. She was a half-mile away at the edge of a cliff 350 feet above the water. I could barely see her small figure against a fjord wall that rose thousands of feet into soggy clouds. Just then, I heard a sharp crack. Turning quickly toward the glacier, I saw the skyscraper-sized pillar topple into the sea, sending an explosion of water and ice 150 feet into the air. The roar was terrifying as icebergs and 15-foot waves crashed against the granite shore bordering the glacier. Seconds later, another top-to-bottom section collapsed, echoing like a bomb blast against the surrounding mountains. I could only watch as the waves approached, giant wrinkles in icy water, and soon I was rising and falling eight feet, with bergs grinding against my boat. The entire mile-long fjord was alive with rolling waves and the sound of crackling icebergs. photo: Gridlock - Calving glaciers can choke narrow fjords with icebergs, slowing the morning commute for rangers. |
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