Lake Eva, Hanus Bay, Baranof Island
Southeast Alaska is a temperate rainforest with a high average yearly rainfall. This area of Baranof sports around 100 inches a year! The principal giants seen here are the Sitka spruce and the western hemlock. The first to be established after the pioneering plants have worked the area over for a series of years, is the spruce. Many years later the hemlocks arrive, having grown slowly in the shade of the spruce. They will finally reach the same size and begin to push the spruce out, eventually establishing a rather constant proportion of these two species: 75% hemlock to 25 % spruce.
Today we sailed into Hanus Bay and anchored there. First we sent the different hiking groups ashore during a terribly fast dropping tide, followed by a number of kayakers. The hikes followed old bear-paths along the river that drains Lake Eva. The trail goes up and beyond a smallish waterfall where the different salmon that come to breed in this river were to be seen. Some groups walked quite a bit upstream to the lake itself and beyond, to a lovely grove of old-growth trees, like this huge Sitka spruce. These giants of the forest have survived logging due to the distance upstream and away from the oceanside. Besides the great number of spots on the walk that were mud ponds, we found an interesting number of salmonberry bushes which furnished us very generously with snacks!
At midday we were all back aboard, and during lunch had taken off back into Chatham Strait and headed toward Glacier Bay National Park where we will be tomorrow. We were interrupted in our voyage however, by a series of humpback whales that insisted in doing a few antics for us. Shortly thereafter we met a second group of these magnificent behemoths who we followed a bit longer, as they really showed us what aquatic antics are! Breaches and lunges, as well as pectoral flapping, both the young and the mother moved and jumped together.
Southeast Alaska is a temperate rainforest with a high average yearly rainfall. This area of Baranof sports around 100 inches a year! The principal giants seen here are the Sitka spruce and the western hemlock. The first to be established after the pioneering plants have worked the area over for a series of years, is the spruce. Many years later the hemlocks arrive, having grown slowly in the shade of the spruce. They will finally reach the same size and begin to push the spruce out, eventually establishing a rather constant proportion of these two species: 75% hemlock to 25 % spruce.
Today we sailed into Hanus Bay and anchored there. First we sent the different hiking groups ashore during a terribly fast dropping tide, followed by a number of kayakers. The hikes followed old bear-paths along the river that drains Lake Eva. The trail goes up and beyond a smallish waterfall where the different salmon that come to breed in this river were to be seen. Some groups walked quite a bit upstream to the lake itself and beyond, to a lovely grove of old-growth trees, like this huge Sitka spruce. These giants of the forest have survived logging due to the distance upstream and away from the oceanside. Besides the great number of spots on the walk that were mud ponds, we found an interesting number of salmonberry bushes which furnished us very generously with snacks!
At midday we were all back aboard, and during lunch had taken off back into Chatham Strait and headed toward Glacier Bay National Park where we will be tomorrow. We were interrupted in our voyage however, by a series of humpback whales that insisted in doing a few antics for us. Shortly thereafter we met a second group of these magnificent behemoths who we followed a bit longer, as they really showed us what aquatic antics are! Breaches and lunges, as well as pectoral flapping, both the young and the mother moved and jumped together.
