When we first came to Alaska back in 2009, you could still make the 49 mile drive from Cordova to the Million Dollar Bridge (the Bridge to Nowhere). Across the broad, swift, roily Copper River, massive Childs Glacier towered. We had just completed the Salmon Jam half-marathon. Along with another couple, we rented a car and made the drive out through the vast delta wetlands along a mostly unpaved rough, pot-holed road – Trumpeter Swans, other waterfowl, beaver lodges, bear scat and even a couple of moose along the way, distant mountains, our eyes wide with Alaska wow.

Barbra was our primary photographer in those days. We had identified an area that was active, popping and cracking, sloughing off showers of ice. “That entire face is going to go,” I predicted. Barbra set up the camera on a tripod and programmed it to take a shot every second. (The result was like a stop action film.) Shortly after the above shot was made, a wave of five or six feet came barreling toward us with a speed that caught us off guard. I grabbed the tripod as we scrambled for higher ground. Back in Cordova, upon seeing the photos on our camera a Forest Service Ranger told us we had witnessed a “once in every five years or so event.”

Here is the same shot as a black & white image.