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After breakfast we followed the Copper River to Cordova, slipping under a layer of fog through a hole in one of the valleys. We saw amazing patterns in the sand along the river. The Copper River carries an incredible amount of material down from the mountains.
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We flew over a bridge near the Child's Glacier that had been damaged in the big earthquake of 1964. The river had grown about 20 feet wider and one span of the bridge had fallen down into the river. There is a new project to (finally) re-open the road, and the section of fallen bridge had been raised up when we saw it, though the 20 foot gap was still present. We continued on into Cordova, where we landed and rented a car for the day.
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 The Copper River |
 Bridge damaged in '64 quake |
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We drove about an hour down a gravel road back to the Child's Glacier. The glacier moves about 6 inches a day, and is undercut by the passing Copper River, which causes big chunks of the glacier to 'calve' off and fall into the river. As we were parking we heard what sounded like a crash of thunder, so we ran down the path to see what was falling. We saw a number of small pieces falling right in front of us, then saw three big pieces fall into the river off to the right.
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We spent the next two hours watching small pieces fall in, waiting for something big to go. As we were about to give up, a huge column of ice about 120 feet tall and 20 feet across let go and crashed down into the river. It was really awesome.
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Then we went over to the bridge and watched as big chunks of ice from another glacier nearby went sailing by, one big chunk even hit the protecting block of concrete in from of one of the bridge piers. On the way back to town we stopped at a trailhead and hiked a couple of miles to McKinley Lake. It was a nice easy hike, very lush and green, a huge change from all the ice we had just seen.
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After that we drove back into Cordova and checked in at the Orca Adventure Lodge. We spent a bit of time figuring out our plans for the following day after Chuck dropped us off. We settled on renting a car in Anchorage and driving down to Seward for the night where we could see another glacier. Then we went into the dining hall for dinner. We ended up meeting some guys who were there fishing, and amazingly, one of the was from Burien in Washington State, where Rick grew up and his parents live now. Small world (again!). After dinner it was off to bed.
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