Barnard Glacier

March 07, 2016

Barnard Glacier_Alaska_aerial

Photographer: Bernhard Edmaier
Summary Author: Bernhard Edmaier

March 2016 Viewer's Choice

Looking more like a modern thoroughfare being constructed through a mountain pass than a glacier system, the Barnard Glacier in the Saint Elias Mountains of Alaska widens with every ice river that flows out of one of the side valleys. Each time another valley glacier merges with the Barnard the numbers of lateral moraines, the strips of darkened debris, increases as does the mass of material that the Barnard carries with it. Note that much of the ice is covered with dust in this late summer scene. I took this aerial photo in August of 2005, at an altitude of approximately 11,000 ft (3,350 m) from an aircraft I chartered in nearby McCarthy, Alaska

Photo Details: Hasselblad 203FE camera; Zeiss Distagon 50mm lens; Fujichrome Velvia film.