Sorry I haven’t had much time to blog. I’ll write more about my trip next week. It’s been AMAZING!

Wednesday, we took a boat ride to the Columbia Glacier near Valdez, Alaska. The clouds broke up long enough to get an incredible view of the ice. We passed icebergs that were up to 50 feet high. The water temperature where I was here in the picture was 43 degrees. The boat captain said that a typical day downwind from the glacier in mid-summer would bring a high temperature over the water of about 50 degrees and you get a brisk, cold wind coming off the glaciers. He said the amount of fresh water melting off the glacier on a typical mid-summer afternooon is about equivalent to the water coming down the Mississippi River.

The glacier is fed by the incredibly heavy snowfall during the long winter. Valdez is officially the snowiest place in Alaska. The annual average snowfall is 305.8 inches. The winter of 1989-90 set the record for the snowiest winter ever for Valdez with a total of 560.7 inches (46 feet) of snowfall. Check out this pic. showing how high the snow can get near Valdez.

We also saw two whales, hundreds of sea lions, dozens of sea otters, eagles – another moose.