Vanishing Lake
Some time in mid-May, 2017, a couple of MICA Guides had ventured out a few miles on the Matanuska Glacier and spotted this immense blue lake with a shoreline that required almost 2 miles walking to circumnavigate. I almost couldn’t believe what they were telling me, so I went to see for myself. I was unsure of exactly where it was, and had little time before I had to spend that day so I travelled light and made the mistake of leaving my DSLR behind. When I found the lake I couldn’t believe my eyes. How could water even be that deep of blue? It was unreal. I snapped some photos with my smart phone, knowing I’d be back the next day when I could more time exploring the beautiful lake. When I walked back to what I thought was the same area the next day, though, the lake was nowhere to be found. I walked around a while, convinced I had lost my way and was in the wrong place. It was obvious by looking at the huge walls of ice, however, that they had recently been underwater, and that the lake had in fact disappeared overnight! In its place was a small river draining into a massive moulin that had sucked the lake down into the glacier itself. - This is actually a fairly common event on large glaciers and ice sheets, when a moulin freezes up in the winter, the spring melt has nowhere to go until the tunnels open back up, and the water will force its way through often all at once.
Samsung Galaxy S7 – 4.2mm (Equivalent to 26mm DSLR) at f/1.7 and ISO 50 for 1/8000s
