D Lee <snorkler_at_juno.com> wrote: >>The state ferry I was on stayed several hundred yards away from the face of the Columbia Glacier. When the glacier calved, several hundred Black-legged Kittiwakes flew into the area, searching for food in the churned-up water. The resultant wave rocked the ferry, which was maybe 600 feet long. I don't think any of us would want to be in a kayak 20 yards away from the face of a glacier when it drops a couple of hundred tons of ice in a calving.<< <SNIP> I rode that ferry back in 1975. My understanding why they stand off 1/2 mile or so is that tidewater glaciers can have a large "lower lip" that protrudes out underwater up to a 1/4 mile beyond the Glacier face. Worse this huge lip can break off in big chunks and then float quicly to the surface. I have seen someone's slides of this happening and the big new iceberg that came up was pretty incredible. I'd stay back at least 1/4 mile even with a relatively small tidewater glacier. Matt Broze http://www.marinerkayaks.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Apr 27 2000 - 01:39:36 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:23 PDT