Tracy Arm, Southeast Alaska
There is a comfort that settles within one’s soul when embraced by caring arms. Even those who desire the wild and wilderness, the joy of open spaces, find solace snuggled within a warm sleeping bag. That closeness, the touch on one’s skin seems to fill a basic need perhaps spawned in a mother’s womb. Although it was a phantom hug, the towering walls of Tracy Arm elicited this same emotional response as we traveled its length today.
Gray light bounced from vertical cliffs on either side, rolled over rounded exfoliation domes and tumbled into U-shaped valleys. Waterfalls became silvery ribbons, sometimes threadlike and singular or curling together in intricate braids. Grander versions cascaded from hanging valleys and leapt, falling free to join the sea. Veiling clouds swirled into hidden bowls and crevices sometimes descending to hide our route and at others parting to reveal patches of blue sky. The deep dark greens of conifers gave way to forest greens of carpeting alder and willows which in turn released their hold, retreating to zigzag lines forming abstract patterns on barren cliffs. When these were gone glacial grooves or chatter marks took over in horizontal artistic designs.
At the head of the arm, in two separate fingers, rivers of ice flowed into the water filled fjords. Siamese twins joined at their origins and united in their intensity of hue, their personalities were as different as brothers often are. South Sawyer was flamboyant, a showman some might say. It groaned and roared for hours casting house and bus-sized blocks creating ten-story geysers and massive rocking waves. Its fragments filled the fjord from wall to wall, the flatter floes forming perfect platforms for harbor seals to watch the show. They and we were not the only observers for we shared our space with other vessels that were very glad that we were there. Like a mother duck trailed by her timid ducklings, the Sea Bird led each safely through the maze of ice to open water where they all fledged and continued on their way. Sawyer Glacier, on the other hand, sat solemnly. It seemed to have promise and moaned now and then, but its show was more subdued.
Where the waters of Tracy Arm merge with those of Holkam Bay, a diverticular cove juts out to the north. Here the waters were flat and calm, a paradise for kayakers to explore. The shores too held secrets to be found. Sedge and grassy meadows gave way to flowering plants where orange paintbrush mingled with lacy leaved yarrow. Alders, having prepared the soil, passed their riches to spruce and hemlock whose canopy hid the trails of black bear and signs of their recently passing there. It took no imagination to picture these beautiful beasts for only hours before we had silently observed one’s foraging techniques.
Oh, did I say it rained today? When lost in splendor, it is easy to forget.
