Sea Kayaking Valdez

Priya came to visit for about a month in June and July, and one of the places we went was to Valdez. We took a sea kayak trip back to the Shoup Glacier, which was incredible. The area surrounding the glacier was awesome, and the glacier itself was awesome.

This is us facing away from the glacier. The mountains surrounding Shoup Bay were covered in greenery, and we saw a bear rumbling around while we were kayaking in.

Us in the kayak. Priya was the navigator for the trip because my leg's were too long for me to fit in the backseat. We were all good once she got a hang of using the rudder. The glacier was actively calving (falling apart), so we couldn't get to close. Our guide told us the danger isn't so much the waves created by pieces of the glacier falling off as small chunks of ice getting launched at high velocity in the general direction of anyone who's too close.

It was, all told, about a six hour tour, so we ate lunch at a spot overlooking the glacier.

Me at the lunch spot.

After lunch we kayaked to the other side of the bay and wandered around on the glacier for a while. It was mostly covered with rock, but where there was ice exposed the glacier had a beautiful deep blue. If you notice the people in front of the glacier, you'll get a sense of how big the glacier is. I've found up here that in pictures and in person sense of scale is, for whatever reason, ludricously out of whack

Us in front of the exposed ice.