Glacier Bay National Park

What a day! To have perfect weather in one of the most beautiful places on Earth makes for a very memorable day indeed. Glacier Bay National Park is one of the biggest parks in the U.S., covering some 3.3 million acres. That means we had plenty of room to explore and we had all day in which to do it. Glacier Bay is world renowned for its wildlife, and we were fortunate to observe many aerial, terrestrial, and marine species. Watching a peregrine falcon chase after kittiwakes, and a huge male brown bear amble along a river bank, and a humpback whale tail lob were all exciting enough, but I think the most interesting animal we sighted today was a fully grown moose munching on a single, isolated willow tree right at the water’s edge. The moose, having found the only edible tree in the area was reluctant to leave and stayed right there audibly defoliating the willow as we held our position just offshore admiring his technique. We were amazed when Ranger Kerry Jones told us that moose have only been known in Glacier Bay since 1967 when the first one wandered in on its own. Many more moved into the area during the ensuing decades and lots have been born in the region. Everyone is happy to see the growing population...a real emblem for wildness.

Glacier Bay is also world renowned for its geology. This great bay was totally blocked by glacial ice when George Vancouver visited the area in 1794. He encountered a vertical wall of ice that was 20 miles wide and 4,000 feet thick at the mouth of the bay. However, in 1879, John Muir came here and found the glacial ice had retreated 48 miles up into the bay since Vancouver’s visit. The ice front has continued retreating northward ever since, and today, we can see evidence of this glacial retreat by observing newly exposed ice-smoothed granite bedrock (note the obvious horizontal scars left on Gloomy Knob by the glacier in the accompanying photo) and progressively younger forests as we travel up bay. All this change has occurred in only a few lifetimes. In fact, the faces of some of the glaciers have moved several miles since I first came here in 1977! We had the unique opportunity today to follow the retreat of that wall of ice which once filled Glacier Bay...it was like going back in time.