Glacier Caves

March 9, 2011 4:59 PM

"I figured I'd explore for a bit and before I knew it I was 50 yards within a huge cave gazing at the most beautiful, otherworldly sight I had ever laid eyes on," he tells us. "It was like stepping into Superman's lair and every changing shade of blue lured me deeper and deeper." Inside Glacier Caves.

The photographer, Eric Guth, has a rather flash-heavy website here, with a plethora of arctic and antarctic images.

posted by Rinku (20 comments total)

my girlfriend and I went on a one-day trek on the Viedma Glacier while we were in Patagonia and one of our regrets was that our guides didn't get a chance to take us in to a glacier cave. The erosive forces on a glacier (as well as additive forces from snowfall) are indeed fairly dynamic, so terrain features tend to change from day to day or week to week. A cave that you remembered being there a few days ago may be a crevasse today. Still, the ice really was that magical shade of blue where ever we walked.

Another odd bit about glacier trekking is that because the terrain is so volatile, there weren't really 'trails' per se. We just kind of wandered across the surface of the glacier, picking whatever route seemed best. It took a bit to get used to when one is sort of raised on a near dogmatic obedience to "Leave No Trace" hiking principles and always sticking to a path whenever it presents itself.
posted by bl1nk at 5:15 PM on March 9, 2011

Damn. From the tagline, i thought this was gonna be about Minecraft.
posted by jmnugent at 5:22 PM on March 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Blue is beautiful.
posted by kozad at 5:33 PM on March 9, 2011

Wow. That is just unbelievably stunning.
posted by TooFewShoes at 5:34 PM on March 9, 2011

Forget Superman, this is an advance still from the set of At the Mountains of Madness.
posted by Paragon at 5:35 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

glacier caves are crazy dangerous. large collapses often happen several times a week and sometimes multiple times per day. as much as i'd like to tour one, i like the prospect of being crushed under a literal mountain of ice less.

i could look at pictures of them all day, though.
posted by mexican at 5:40 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

The colour Blue in the glacial ice cave I stumbled upon remains one of my most exquisite memories. It was simply beyond. Beyond blue. Beyond colour and ice. Mind-blowing.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:47 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'd say that I would like to spend my life in there, but I'll bet that if you went there just once, you would never really leave.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:28 PM on March 9, 2011

Wow, wow, wow.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:45 PM on March 9, 2011

How beautiful, they're like frozen waves. My first thought came out as "How beautiful, it's like frozen water," which... DURR.
posted by Rora at 7:23 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

More Glacier Caves.
posted by homunculus at 7:25 PM on March 9, 2011

Forgive my ignorance, but this is the first I even heard about glacial caves which in and of itself is a very very cool (no pun intended) concept. Then to see the amazingly beautiful pictures is beyond fantastic. Thank you for this post, for today I truly learned something new and something worthwhile.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:29 PM on March 9, 2011

Cool link, homunculus. I looked for supplemental material but couldn't find much.
posted by Rinku at 7:55 PM on March 9, 2011

Very nice pictures. At first I was like "man why does the guy have to be in them" but then I was like god damn I would want to be, too. And then there are similar pictures without him in, so I was mollified.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 8:25 PM on March 9, 2011

It was like stepping into Superman's lair

Hey, what does this button dooOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo....
posted by obiwanwasabi at 9:14 PM on March 9, 2011

Ötzi. Just sayin.

(What mexican said.)
posted by Sys Rq at 10:28 PM on March 9, 2011

Glaive Cave
posted by Eideteker at 4:26 AM on March 10, 2011

THis is great!
posted by Mister_A at 7:06 AM on March 10, 2011

If you liked these images as I did, you would probably also like the IMAX film Journey Into Amazing Caves available on Netflix.
posted by euphorb at 8:00 AM on March 10, 2011

Glaive Cave

Halberd Hills? Voulge Valley? Guisarme Grotto?
posted by FatherDagon at 2:55 PM on March 10, 2011