Click photo for larger view. ©2016, David A. Porter

Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve is comprised of 3.3 million acres of mountains, glaciers, forests, and waterways.

It is one of the great highlights of Alaska’s Inside Passage and part of a 25 million-acre UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of the world’s largest protected natural areas.

My photograph above captures the John Hopkins Glacier at the end of the John Hopkins Inlet.  And here is a closer view I captured with my telephoto lens…

Click photo for larger view. ©2016, David A. Porter

Johns Hopkins Glacier is a 12-mile (19 km) long glacier located in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in the U.S. state of Alaska. It begins on the east slopes of Lituya Mountain and Mount Salisbury, and trends east to the head of Johns Hopkins Inlet, 1 mile (1.6 km) southwest of the terminus of Clark Glacier and 79 miles (127 km) northwest of Hoonah. It was named after Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland in 1893 by Harry Fielding Reid. It is one of the few advancing tidewater glaciers of the Fairweather Range.  Access to the face of the glacier is limited to the Johns Hopkins Inlet (wikipedia).

The black material you see in the ice is called moraine, which is soil and rock that the glacier has scraped off of the surrounding mountains as it makes its way to the terminus at the water’s edge.

Lastly, when I’m standing in front of a remarkable sight, I always like to look around at the other folks enjoying the view.  Here’s a couple that I caught enjoying the view of the John Hopkins Glacier with us.

Click photo for larger view. ©2016, David A. Porter

This was our second visit to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, and our third sailing up Alaska’s beautiful Inside Passage.  If there weren’t so many other beautiful places in the world to see, I could make this journey an annual visit.  It’s that beautiful, pristine, and virgin.

On this journey, we were sailing with Crystal Cruises, which we absolutely loved.  To read more about our Crystal Cruises experience, click here.

Listen, if you haven’t sailed Alaska’s Inside Passage, you simply must.  We promise, it will be an unforgettable experience.

We’re expert travel planners and know Alaska’s Inside Passage very well.  If you’d like to take advantage of our considerable knowledge of the area, please give our travel agency a call at (480) 550-1235, or use our convenient online information request (click here) and we’ll reach out to you. 

Plus, as we’re members of the $15 billion/year Virtuoso Travel Network, we’re very likely to have complimentary VIP perks to share with you that you can’t get on your own.
 
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