Endicott Arm & Ford’s Terror
With the rising sun just peeking through the clouds, the ship made its way into Endicott Arm. The sheer rock walls descend down to the water’s edge. The dark grey-blue metamorphic rock was painted by green algae where the outgoing tide left it exposed. Above, on the cliff face, strips of alders fill the pockets and ridges that were formed in the geologic yesterday as the glacier that once filled this u-shaped valley pushed towards the sea. Circling gulls soared on the upwelling air current, white dots rising and falling in the distance.
The stripes on the massive blue-white Dawes glacier told us that multiple glaciers and ice fields had actually come together to offer their gifts of ice and snow to the patiently waiting sea. Their borders delineated by medial moraines; piles of rock, pebbles and glacial flour that were plucked from the valley’s rock walls.
Finally, our attention and our binoculars turned to the water. Harbor seals sunbathing on their glittering iceberg beaches. Mothers and pups seemed impossibly close to us, almost as if they had heard our wishes for a portrait picture and obliged, serenely blinking their long lashes at us, seemingly undisturbed by our presence. As the National Geographic Sea Bird turns to leave, the clouds lifted, affording us a view of the rounded, towering peaks that have kept vigil over the water, rock, ice and life below.
With the rising sun just peeking through the clouds, the ship made its way into Endicott Arm. The sheer rock walls descend down to the water’s edge. The dark grey-blue metamorphic rock was painted by green algae where the outgoing tide left it exposed. Above, on the cliff face, strips of alders fill the pockets and ridges that were formed in the geologic yesterday as the glacier that once filled this u-shaped valley pushed towards the sea. Circling gulls soared on the upwelling air current, white dots rising and falling in the distance.
The stripes on the massive blue-white Dawes glacier told us that multiple glaciers and ice fields had actually come together to offer their gifts of ice and snow to the patiently waiting sea. Their borders delineated by medial moraines; piles of rock, pebbles and glacial flour that were plucked from the valley’s rock walls.
Finally, our attention and our binoculars turned to the water. Harbor seals sunbathing on their glittering iceberg beaches. Mothers and pups seemed impossibly close to us, almost as if they had heard our wishes for a portrait picture and obliged, serenely blinking their long lashes at us, seemingly undisturbed by our presence. As the National Geographic Sea Bird turns to leave, the clouds lifted, affording us a view of the rounded, towering peaks that have kept vigil over the water, rock, ice and life below.