Glacier Bay National Park
The richness of this vast wilderness park can be nearly overwhelming and our wildlife sightings today were over-the-top! At the head of Tarr Inlet, the northernmost point in Glacier Bay, the clouds parted and revealed a glorious blue sky fringed with high white mountains. Ever so slowly the glacier slides down the mountain, so (glacially) slow that we barely mark its passing; its sloughing off of bergy bits and growlers… though in reality the ice here has moved relatively quickly, retreating 65 miles in only 250 years.
As we round the bend into the next fiord and reach Jaw Point, John’s Hopkins Glacier fills the horizon, though it is still five miles away. Slithering back into the high Fairweather Range, it is one of very few advancing glaciers. Beside us, fall colors dot the granitic fiord walls, and above us, clouds open into changing vistas of hanging glaciers and peaks dusted with new snow. The scene is stunning and all photographers are on high alert.
The great outwash plain behind Russell Island offers excellent birding and black cottonwoods with autumn gold leaves, but wait! On the point, a bear… no, not a bear. A lone black wolf, perhaps a shapeshifter? What luck indeed, yes, truly, a wolf trotting down the beach, circled by a peregrine falcon.
Gloomy Knob offered some resting mountain goats: nannies with kids, near enough to sea level for great viewing, and thousands of surf scoters with their whirring wing beats. The skies became bluer. At South Marble Island rocks groaned with Stellar sea lions and tufted puffins floated just off the bow. Enough already, you might say…but lucky us, we drew the trump card and saw killer whales! Beautiful black and whites scattered across a calm blue sea. A big male with his tall dorsal fin surfacing slowly and sometimes paired with another. Backlit blows. And on a nearby beach, a big black bear strolling along followed by… his shadow.
