Blue Ice

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Barb10

Guest
My friends just returned from HAL cruise a few weeks ago and they have photos showing blue ice when they went on a helicopter glacier tour. We are going on the same ship Sept. 4th but I can't afford that tour. Is there anywhere else to see blue ice; like at the Mendenhall Glacier? It really looks cool.

Barb
 
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Griffen

Guest
There is a shuttle to the Mendenhall Glacier for $10 pp roundtrip, but I don't know if there's blue ice there or not...
 
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halfdome86

Guest
We visited Mendenhall a couple of weeks ago and there was a large area of blue ice visable from the walkways by the visitor center. In fact if you look closely you'll see blue ice all over the glaciers in spots but this one spot seemed extra large.

If the ship goes to Glacier Bay or Hubbard glacier you'll see a lot of blue ice as well.

This is caused by the density of the ice and how the blue part of the light spectrum reacts...............something like that anyway. :^)
 
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ute_fan

Guest
If you are going to any of the glaciers, including Mendenhall, there will be blue ice. The ranger a Mendenhall was explaining to us what makes the ice appear blue -- and it has something to do with the way the ice compacts and reflects the colors from the spectrum except blue. When the glacier calves, the area that is newly exposed is blue, and gradually changes to white as it is exposed to air and becomes less dense.

How much you see depends on how close you get to the glaciers. Several of the icebergs we saw floating at both Mendenhall and Sawyer Glacier had blue on the bottom and were spectacular looking.
 
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Barb10

Guest
Thanks to everyone for replying to my question about blue ice. I am looking forward to seeing that and everything............... Barb
 
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Howie

Guest
The reason Glaciers can look blue is because the ice aborbs every color of the light spectrum except Blue. The Glacier will actually look bluer on a cloudy day than it will it total sunlight. In other words how much blue you see will depend on how clear or cloudy the skies are at that time.
 
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