We hiked up a glacier at Neko Harbor and it was quite the experience. It’s really hard to get a true feel for the place by looking at these pictures. That’s because there was so much going on that you can’t see. First of all, there was the wind which blew very hard at times. Then there was all the noise. There was a lot of noise here. The glaciers were calving frequently. Sometimes, they were not that loud, but at other times, it sounded like a clap of thunder about ten feet away. I think that twice I covered my ears and ducked when a glacier calved. Then there were thousands of penguins which made lots of noise. Also, as we stood on the glacier, it sounded like a river, not a small creek but a river, was running right underneath our feet. Another part of the experience was the smell. Thousands of penguins in a small area don’t smell like a rose garden. So while the pictures are good ones, they only show a part of the whole experience.

Vicky is about a third to half way up the glacier in this photo. You can see Neko Harbor or part of Andvord Bay behind her. You can also see all the glaciers around the harbor and all the icebergs in the bay. The red flag was our trail marker to follow up the glacier.

The next photo was taken from about where Vicky was in the first photo. It shows the rest of our hike as you can see some of our fellow travelers up ahead of us on top of the glacier. The weather also cooperated as the sun and some blue sky came out for us.

The third photo is also about half way up our hike. We were surprised to see some penguin colonies that high up the glacier. They had a long walk between the bay and their nests but they just went about their business. The high up colonies are usually the first ones that get occupied as they have evolved as the safer places for the penguins to nest.

John Muir, the great naturalist said, “To dine with a glacier on a sunny day is a glorious thing and makes feasts of meat and wine ridiculous. The glacier eats hills and drinks sunbeams.” Vicky and I dined with glaciers on a sunny day in Antarctica this day.