Glacier Bay National Park
We began this wonderful day quite early with a pre-sunrise wake up call. Our Photo Expedition Leader, Ralph, was alerting us to the possibility of lovely light on mountain tops peeking through the clouds. Out on deck it was a spectacular sight. During the night the ship had sailed northward far into Glacier Bay. By dawn we were positioned in Johns Hopkins Inlet, undeniably one of the most beautiful locations in Southeast Alaska. In front of the ship, the massive bulk of Johns Hopkins Glacier arched out of the surrounding mountains, ending in a towering wall of ice spanning the end of the bay. The calm waters around us were peppered with “bergy bits,” and larger ice bergs calved from the glacier into the sea. Harbor seals had hauled out onto some of the larger floes. All around us, steep rock walls sloped upwards to towering mountains draped with smaller glaciers. Clouds swirled around their highest snowfields dappled with the brilliant orange light of dawn (photo).
During the rest of the day we cruised to various regions of Glacier Bay admiring the scenery and wildlife. In Tidal Inlet we had superb views of a large brown bear foraging across a grassy slope just above the shore. It stood to scratch its back on a tree, and then clambered down the hill to wander unperturbed along the beach. There were bald eagles staring down at us from each wooded point we passed, and an unusual sighting of a lone Leach’s storm-petrel. We sailed onward to Geikie Inlet, and then to South Marble Island where we found hundreds of Steller’s sea lions, and throngs of seabirds. There were many black-legged kittiwakes, glaucous-winged gulls and pelagic cormorants, but their numbers couldn’t compete with the attraction of several colorful tufted puffins. A few horned puffins were also briefly sighted. In the waters around nearby Bolder Island, we found a number of sea otters; terminally adorable.
By late afternoon, we arrived at Bartlett Cove where the headquarters of the national park as well as the Glacier Bay lodge are located. Here, we enjoyed a chance to stretch our legs with leisurely walks through the moss-laden spruce and hemlock forest that now grows on this area that was once the terminal moraine deposited by the ancestors of the glaciers we were watching at dawn.
We began this wonderful day quite early with a pre-sunrise wake up call. Our Photo Expedition Leader, Ralph, was alerting us to the possibility of lovely light on mountain tops peeking through the clouds. Out on deck it was a spectacular sight. During the night the ship had sailed northward far into Glacier Bay. By dawn we were positioned in Johns Hopkins Inlet, undeniably one of the most beautiful locations in Southeast Alaska. In front of the ship, the massive bulk of Johns Hopkins Glacier arched out of the surrounding mountains, ending in a towering wall of ice spanning the end of the bay. The calm waters around us were peppered with “bergy bits,” and larger ice bergs calved from the glacier into the sea. Harbor seals had hauled out onto some of the larger floes. All around us, steep rock walls sloped upwards to towering mountains draped with smaller glaciers. Clouds swirled around their highest snowfields dappled with the brilliant orange light of dawn (photo).
During the rest of the day we cruised to various regions of Glacier Bay admiring the scenery and wildlife. In Tidal Inlet we had superb views of a large brown bear foraging across a grassy slope just above the shore. It stood to scratch its back on a tree, and then clambered down the hill to wander unperturbed along the beach. There were bald eagles staring down at us from each wooded point we passed, and an unusual sighting of a lone Leach’s storm-petrel. We sailed onward to Geikie Inlet, and then to South Marble Island where we found hundreds of Steller’s sea lions, and throngs of seabirds. There were many black-legged kittiwakes, glaucous-winged gulls and pelagic cormorants, but their numbers couldn’t compete with the attraction of several colorful tufted puffins. A few horned puffins were also briefly sighted. In the waters around nearby Bolder Island, we found a number of sea otters; terminally adorable.
By late afternoon, we arrived at Bartlett Cove where the headquarters of the national park as well as the Glacier Bay lodge are located. Here, we enjoyed a chance to stretch our legs with leisurely walks through the moss-laden spruce and hemlock forest that now grows on this area that was once the terminal moraine deposited by the ancestors of the glaciers we were watching at dawn.
