Why is this glacier ice at Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska blue?

Glacier ice is blue because the red (long wavelengths) part of white light is absorbed by ice. The blue (short wavelengths) light is transmitted and scattered. The longer the path that light travels in ice, the more blue it appears! The more you know 🌈 🎵

Photo by National Park Service. Photo description: A blue iceberg sits in the water with a large glacier and mountains in the background. 

Happy Birthday, Glacier Bay National Park! Designated from a national monument to a national park on this day in 1980, Glacier Bay covers 3.3 million acres of rugged mountains, dynamic glaciers, temperate rainforest, wild coastlines and deep sheltered fjords. From sea to summit, the Alaska park offers limitless opportunities for adventure and inspiration. And the most incredible blue water you’ll ever see. Photo by Cliff LaPlant (www.sharetheexperience.org).

Exit Glacier is the only part of Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska accessible by road. From the Nature Center, visitors can explore trails, walk very close to an active glacier or take a ranger-led walk. It’s a place where you can witness up close how glaciers re-shape a landscape and learn how plant life reclaims the barren rocky land exposed by a glacier’s retreat. In the summer, the wildflower blooms and endless views make the experience magical. Photo by Catherine Danley (www.sharetheexperience.org).

When describing glaciers in Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska, superlatives are hard to avoid. Within our largest national park exists the nation’s largest glacial system, with rivers of ice flowing dozens of miles through majestic mountains. In summer, runoff from glaciers swells rivers and precipitates an explosion of green. From the ground and the air, it’s an epic sight. Photo by Neal Herbert, National Park Service.

Happy birthday, Glacier National Park! On May 11, 1910, President William Taft signed a bill into law establishing the country’s 10th national park. Montana’s Glacier protects glacier-carved peaks and valleys, pristine turquoise lakes and streams, and dense ancient forests for all to enjoy. Learn more about the Crown of the Continent as we celebrate this iconic national park: https://on.doi.gov/glacier. 

Photo by Shan Lin (www.sharetheexperience.org).

Say hello to the second tallest mountain in America: Mount St. Elias in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve in Alaska. Standing over 18,000 feet tall, it towers over Icy Bay, which gets its name from the glaciers that run down Mount St. Elias’s slopes. It’s just one of the many amazing natural sights in America’s largest national park. Photo by Bryan Petrtyl, National Park Service.

From the bottom of the deepest glacial fjord to the summit of its highest peak, Glacier Bay National Park encompasses some of our continent’s most amazing scenery and wildness. If we need a place to intrigue and inspire us, this is it. Alaska’s Glacier Bay is a living laboratory, a designated wilderness, a biosphere reserve and a world heritage site. It’s a marine park, where great adventure awaits by boating into inlets, coves and close to its dynamic, namesake glacier. It’s also a land park, with its snow-capped mountains, spectacular glaciers and vast forests. Photo by National Park Service.

From the bottom of the deepest glacial fjord to the summit of its highest peak, Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve in Alaska encompasses some of our continent’s most amazing scenery and wilderness. Photographer David Canales explored this incredible park on a two-week kayak expedition. One day, he decided to hike up the east side of Lamplugh Glacier and captured this terrific view. Photo courtesy of David Canales.

Sunset ignites the clouds around Mount Rainier’s summit in Mount Rainier National Park in Washington. To see this, hike up to Glacier Overlook and enjoy wonderful views of forests, meadows, streams, mountains and wildlife. There’s so much to experience, you might even miss the marmots. Can you spot the one in this picture? Photo by Howard Snyder (www.sharetheexperience.org).

Larger than Switzerland, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve in Alaska is our nation’s biggest national park. Four mountain ranges run through it, with nine of the 16 highest peaks in the country. Its Malaspina glacier is bigger than the state of Rhode Island, and the possibilities for adventure are endless. Photo by Jacob Frank, National Park Service.