Endicott Arm and Ford’s Terror
Our final day exploring Southeast Alaska was spent struggling to comprehend the scale of this landscape. Only the occasional, daring Arctic tern swopping near the glacier face or a bald eagle perched upon a serac was our reference point for size. How tall are these mountains? How tall is that glacier? How far away is it? Vertical fjord walls carved by Dawes Glacier disappeared into the mist of a low ceiling, forcing us to fill the blanks with our imagination and wonderment.
Ford’s Terror has become a place of legend. It’s extremely narrow passage can result in standing waves and accelerated currents. It’s narrow, compressed dimensions bring vertical walls straight to the ocean in an almost claustrophobic scene. Yet the size of this ‘sunken Yosemite’ is deceptively large. Waterfalls lack clear distinction in this land of water and steep grades. From a distance we see threads of white lacing down granite slopes. Up close those same tendrils of falling liquid turn to raging torrents yards wide, plummeting hundreds of feet to the sea. Here we can see only what the ice has gouged and scraped away. Past the influence of ice lies a world unknown to most. No roads and no trails. This is the wilderness.
