Muir Glacier

Muir Glacier is a glacier in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is currently about 0.7 km (0.43 mi) wide at the terminus. As recently as the mid-1980s the glacier was a tidewater glacier and calved icebergs from a wall of ice 60 m (200 feet) tall.

The glacier is named after John Muir, the naturalist, who traveled around the area and wrote about it, generating interest in the local environment and in its preservation. His first two visits were in 1878 (at age 41) and 1880. During the visits, he sent an account of his visits in installments to the San Francisco Bulletin. Later, he collected and edited these installments in a book, Travels in Alaska, published in 1915, the year after he died.

Read more about Muir Glacier:  Retreat

Famous quotes containing the words muir and/or glacier:

    But famished field and blackened tree
    Bear flowers in Eden never known.
    Blossoms of grief and charity
    Bloom in these darkened fields alone.
    —Edwin Muir (1887–1959)

    “The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
    The desert sighs in the bed,
    And the crack in the tea-cup opens
    A lane to the land of the dead.
    —W.H. (Wystan Hugh)