Endicott Arm
Our week started with a crisp, but sunny day in Ford’s Terror Wilderness. We made our way up Endicott Arm past waterfalls, harbor seals and bald eagles. Our first destination, Dawes Glacier, is made up of almost twenty glaciers that have combined to create this massive ice face. The 250 foot ice cliff continually calves or breaks off, and we watched as a few pieces added to the collection of icebergs in the water.
During naturalist Jason Kelley’s presentation this morning, we learned that if more snow falls than melts each year that it will slowly be compressed into ice. It takes about one, to one and a half feet of snow to make one inch of ice. Even on a flat plane, after ice reaches 50 meters in depth it begins to flow due to its own weight. Though the top is very brittle, deeper down it acts more like a plastic with incredible erosive power. It is not density or pressure, but sheer weight that allows ice to erode rock. As the rock gets incorporated into the ice also contributes to erosion. As the rocks and ice move in one direction they act like a bulldozer pushing rocks out in front of them. This is called a terminal moraine. If the face of a glacier then begins to retreat these rocks are deposited, sometimes creating a bar under water that can greatly vary the depth of the water.
This afternoon we went ashore at William’s Cove. What an amazing place for our first adventures in the rainforest of Tongass National Forest. Hikers discovered the differences between towering Spruce and Hemlock trees as they walked over the spongy ground cover. The pink flowers of the salmonberry crowded the shore with red paintbrush and chocolate lilies nestled just underneath.
Kayakers paddled across the cove to a beautiful waterfall amidst groups of harlequin ducks and the calls of a bald eagle. A brilliant, blue, sculptured iceberg rested deep in the cove for the kayakers to investigate in the changing light. The blueness of the ice is dependent on whether it is big enough and dense enough to scatter the reddish end of the light spectrum. The rest of the spectrum came and went from the sky in the form of a rainbow, as both the wind and rain challenged some of the last kayakers back to the shore.
Dinner was cut short by a mother humpback and calf, breaching nearby. Cameras in hand, we headed up to the bow and watched the two surface over and over near shore. Judie Blewitt, the Hotel Manager, kindly brought dessert into the lounge so that none would go without Tiramisu.
Our week started with a crisp, but sunny day in Ford’s Terror Wilderness. We made our way up Endicott Arm past waterfalls, harbor seals and bald eagles. Our first destination, Dawes Glacier, is made up of almost twenty glaciers that have combined to create this massive ice face. The 250 foot ice cliff continually calves or breaks off, and we watched as a few pieces added to the collection of icebergs in the water.
During naturalist Jason Kelley’s presentation this morning, we learned that if more snow falls than melts each year that it will slowly be compressed into ice. It takes about one, to one and a half feet of snow to make one inch of ice. Even on a flat plane, after ice reaches 50 meters in depth it begins to flow due to its own weight. Though the top is very brittle, deeper down it acts more like a plastic with incredible erosive power. It is not density or pressure, but sheer weight that allows ice to erode rock. As the rock gets incorporated into the ice also contributes to erosion. As the rocks and ice move in one direction they act like a bulldozer pushing rocks out in front of them. This is called a terminal moraine. If the face of a glacier then begins to retreat these rocks are deposited, sometimes creating a bar under water that can greatly vary the depth of the water.
This afternoon we went ashore at William’s Cove. What an amazing place for our first adventures in the rainforest of Tongass National Forest. Hikers discovered the differences between towering Spruce and Hemlock trees as they walked over the spongy ground cover. The pink flowers of the salmonberry crowded the shore with red paintbrush and chocolate lilies nestled just underneath.
Kayakers paddled across the cove to a beautiful waterfall amidst groups of harlequin ducks and the calls of a bald eagle. A brilliant, blue, sculptured iceberg rested deep in the cove for the kayakers to investigate in the changing light. The blueness of the ice is dependent on whether it is big enough and dense enough to scatter the reddish end of the light spectrum. The rest of the spectrum came and went from the sky in the form of a rainbow, as both the wind and rain challenged some of the last kayakers back to the shore.
Dinner was cut short by a mother humpback and calf, breaching nearby. Cameras in hand, we headed up to the bow and watched the two surface over and over near shore. Judie Blewitt, the Hotel Manager, kindly brought dessert into the lounge so that none would go without Tiramisu.
