Travel, Alaska, Glacier flight, Photography Tips

Flying Over the Juneau Ice Field

Our Great Alaskan Adventure continues

The vastness of a glacier defies description. To see the crumbling edge of a sheet of blue ice tumbling down through a split between granite peaks — erupting as it splashes into the water — gives you one perspective. But to see a glacier from above is like viewing the hand of the goddess sculpting the very earth itself.

In June, my husband and I arrived in Juneau, Alaska for our great adventure. We both crave a touch of wildness to feed our souls and we were looking forward to being out on the water for a week, away from any towns, just immersed in nature.

But before we got on the boat that would be our home for a week, we knew that there were a few things that we wanted to do in the twenty-four hours that we had in Juneau. The night before, while having dinner on the Wharf, we had watched the little sea planes taking off and landing. We had booked a glacier tour for the next day. I had my eye on that little yellow plane and I just knew that it would be the one that would take us up the next day.

We’ve done a few of these flights before — a similar one in Juneau last summer, but we had landed on a glacial lake that time. And we landed on a glacier on Denali the summer before (spectacular — you can see the photos here). Each was incredible. But I had been a little frustrated with trying to photograph something so immense. And the camera picked up all of the window glare.

So, this time, I had found a handy-dandy little gadget to attach to your camera. My husband laughs at me because it sort of looks like a toilet plunger. I had played with it a bit on commercial flights, but this was to be the real test.

I bought the Nikon Z9 earlier this year and I was also testing out the new focus settings (with the recent firmware update, Nikon offered some new ways to focus on your subject), which I did find to be fabulous for landscape photography.

I also went with a 24–200mm lens in order to be able to be adaptable and not have to change lenses in the air. This is what the set-up looked like:

After signing paperwork at the counter (including telling them our weights — I guess they need to be certain that everything is balanced), we climbed aboard the plane. I was right behind the pilot on the left-hand side and my husband got to ride “shot-gun” with the pilot.

The best view really is from that co-pilot seat. And you can get great video from that shot-gun seat. But you can’t take photographs because you’ll get the propellers in your shots (who knew??? You can’t actually see them when you’re flying, but they do show up in pictures).

Water take-offs are fun. You feel like you’re never going to take to the air, but then all-of-a-sudden, you’re up. That’s the outskirts of Juneau beneath us.

And then we were up, up and away, soaring over the peaks we’d only glimpsed the toes of from down below. We were told that the mountains here are “domed” because of being worn down by glacial activity.

And then, the Taku Glacier was right in front of us. There are so many glaciers around here that I’m not even sure they all have names. But this one is recognized to be the deepest and thickest alpine temperate glacier known in the world.

It is is 4,845 feet (1,477 m) thick and about 58 kilometres (36 mi) long, and is largely within the Tongass National Forest. To say that the Taku Glacier is mind-bogglingly immense would be an understatement.

We had headphones on — to listen to the pilot and to audio tidbits about the Juneau Icefield — and they muffle the sound of the engine. That muffling effect really makes you feel almost disembodied as you float over this surreal landscape.

The flight was only an hour, but it seemed like it was a time-out-of-time. We drifted on clouds and peered down into deep gorges.

Here’s the Taku Glacier again, from a bit further up the mountain. Can you see the blue in the ice? Glacial ice is blue because the dense ice of the glacier absorbs every other color of the spectrum except blue.

In areas where it is very compressed, the ice looks like little jewels.

We were so lucky to have a blue-sky day for our flight. You never know what you’re going to get for weather in Alaska. Coming from Southern California, where we’re in the midst of a huge drought, we actually really enjoyed the “liquid sunshine” days. But I was happy to have sun for the flight.

After viewing the Taku Glacier, we turned and headed back in the direction of Juneau. But there were more glaciers everywhere we looked

There is something almost primal about seeing these forces of nature at work from the perspective of a plane. Alaska is a land so vast, and still so untouched, that it both exhilarates and frightens me a little. Looking down at that landscape, I wonder about how many grizzly bears and other wild creatures call this place home and about what it would be like to live “off-the grid” up here.

Two years ago, when we were in the back of Denali National Park, we saw the cabin of “Fannie Quigley,” a woman who lived, mostly, alone in a little cabin in the wilderness in the early 1900’s. It’s hard to imagine being able to survive a winter up here by living off the land.

Before we knew it we were back in Juneau, with a couple of hours to spend before we boarded our Uncruise boat and set off with fifty-four other souls into the beauty of Glacier Bay. A glass of Alaskan cider back at the wharf, where our adventure began, sounded like an excellent idea. And it was!

Stay tuned for the rest of the adventure….

Here’s part 1, if you’d like to follow along:

Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies).

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