Sea Bird in Glacier Bay, Alaska
Today we woke to brilliant sunny skies as the Sea Bird cruised north into Glacier Bay National Park. Stopping in Bartlett Cove, we picked up Sarah Keefer, a ranger who has worked in the park for the last four years. She gave us a nice introduction to the park and some of its wildlife. After breakfast, we scampered to the bow to view the white dolomite ledges of South Marble Island. Although there are a few spruce and elderberry on the summit, much of the island is turf and cliff. Here we saw large numbers of Steller’s sea lions, alternately roaring, nipping their neighbors, or snuggling up to each other. Basking in the sun, they were able to make the stony shoreline look as comfortable as a Barcalounger.
We continued up the bay, noting the retreat of the massive Grand Pacific glacier that had halted Captain George Vancouver when he was mapping this coast in 1794. When John Muir came to study the glaciers in 1879, he camped at the snout of the Grand Pacific, then at Russell Island, and 48 miles from where Vancouver charted it. We observed the broad dark face of the Grand Pacific, on the Canadian border at head of Tarr Inlet, an astonishing 65 mile retreat in the last two centuries.
A few of us saw a rather shy moose in the morning, but everyone came on deck after lunch to see a brown bear crossing a broad alluvial fan. Here we also noticed an eagle nest in a cottonwood tree, with an adult eagle and a shaggy chunk of mountain goat. Although we had admired sure-footed goat families earlier in the day, we speculated that perhaps this goat had fallen from the cliffs, was dismembered by a wolf or bear, and then was scavenged by the eagle. Later, as we rounded Jaw Point and gawked at Johns Hopkins Glacier, we had nice looks at harbor seals hauled out on floes of glacial ice, with their young pups. Returning down the bay, we went for a hike in Bartlett Cove after dinner, enjoying the evening light of a long Alaskan day.
Today we woke to brilliant sunny skies as the Sea Bird cruised north into Glacier Bay National Park. Stopping in Bartlett Cove, we picked up Sarah Keefer, a ranger who has worked in the park for the last four years. She gave us a nice introduction to the park and some of its wildlife. After breakfast, we scampered to the bow to view the white dolomite ledges of South Marble Island. Although there are a few spruce and elderberry on the summit, much of the island is turf and cliff. Here we saw large numbers of Steller’s sea lions, alternately roaring, nipping their neighbors, or snuggling up to each other. Basking in the sun, they were able to make the stony shoreline look as comfortable as a Barcalounger.
We continued up the bay, noting the retreat of the massive Grand Pacific glacier that had halted Captain George Vancouver when he was mapping this coast in 1794. When John Muir came to study the glaciers in 1879, he camped at the snout of the Grand Pacific, then at Russell Island, and 48 miles from where Vancouver charted it. We observed the broad dark face of the Grand Pacific, on the Canadian border at head of Tarr Inlet, an astonishing 65 mile retreat in the last two centuries.
A few of us saw a rather shy moose in the morning, but everyone came on deck after lunch to see a brown bear crossing a broad alluvial fan. Here we also noticed an eagle nest in a cottonwood tree, with an adult eagle and a shaggy chunk of mountain goat. Although we had admired sure-footed goat families earlier in the day, we speculated that perhaps this goat had fallen from the cliffs, was dismembered by a wolf or bear, and then was scavenged by the eagle. Later, as we rounded Jaw Point and gawked at Johns Hopkins Glacier, we had nice looks at harbor seals hauled out on floes of glacial ice, with their young pups. Returning down the bay, we went for a hike in Bartlett Cove after dinner, enjoying the evening light of a long Alaskan day.
