The Wellesley Glacier has a high ice cliff at the water's edge, like the Hubbard. You can see caves that have been created by melt water streams within the glacier. At low tide you can see the moraine at its base. It descends very steeply; by contrast, the Yale glacier to its right slopes very gradually toward the sea. The Yale Glacier is also short, and not very active; it has alders growing on its moraine. It shows very clearly the power of a glacier to carve the terrain.

Harvard is the largest glacier in College Fjord, and it is advancing. There is less and less coniferous vegetation the further into the fjord you go--this terrain has more recently been scoured by glacier.

From a distance, it looked rather 'ho hum' but as we got closer and saw the magnitude, we were blown away. For me, this was the ultimate Alaskan imagery - masses of ice and snow that made our ship look like a matchbox toy.

As we approached the glaciers, we heard loud booms but couldn’t figure out what they were. The naturalist on the ship explained that this was the sound caused when parts of the glacier break away and fall into the water. Called calving, the ice initially pops like firecrackers as it starts to break away and then finishes with a loud roar as it hits the water. Near the glacier, the water is filled with many different sized icebergs, some created as a result of the calving.