Tracy Arm–Fords Terror Wilderness, Williams Cove
Calving icebergs from the face of South Sawyer glacier crashed and splashed with an accompanying thunderous boom into the fjord. The icebergs already floating in the water started a rhythmic dancing, somewhat like an ice berg hokey-pokey as they bobbled all about. Such was our morning in Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness. Navigating amongst the icebergs, bergie bits and growlers, we found an open lead and cut our engines to drift with the outgoing tide and listen to the sounds around us. Pitter pattering raindrops, creaking artic terns, the snap, crackle and pop of air bubbles released from their internment in the ice – these were accompaniments to the thunderous symphony of calving and its rock and roll results.
Hidden from view high above the mist were snow capped peaks, from these low clouds emerged tendrils of waterfalls, their white rivulets stood luminous against the dark cliff sides. The thin cascades looked like gleaming white radish roots, slapped against the hillsides, clinging to the cracks and crevices while continuing downhill, responding as water does to the pull of gravity.
While we navigated towards Williams Cove, away from the calving glaciers, the fjord edges grew thicker and taller with green. This sequence of green has resulted from the bared rock being colonized first by lichens and mosses, then willows and alders, and as displayed on our afternoon walks, ultimately Sitka spruce and western hemlock.
Our landscape variances were not only miles but seemingly worlds apart, from a thunderous echoing moonscape to a moss carpeted forest absorbing and muffling the sounds of our footsteps and voices. With the ending of this first day we have barely touched on the diversity of landscape and life that Southeast Alaska offers the intrepid explorer, and that’s okay, we have the whole week ahead of us.
Calving icebergs from the face of South Sawyer glacier crashed and splashed with an accompanying thunderous boom into the fjord. The icebergs already floating in the water started a rhythmic dancing, somewhat like an ice berg hokey-pokey as they bobbled all about. Such was our morning in Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness. Navigating amongst the icebergs, bergie bits and growlers, we found an open lead and cut our engines to drift with the outgoing tide and listen to the sounds around us. Pitter pattering raindrops, creaking artic terns, the snap, crackle and pop of air bubbles released from their internment in the ice – these were accompaniments to the thunderous symphony of calving and its rock and roll results.
Hidden from view high above the mist were snow capped peaks, from these low clouds emerged tendrils of waterfalls, their white rivulets stood luminous against the dark cliff sides. The thin cascades looked like gleaming white radish roots, slapped against the hillsides, clinging to the cracks and crevices while continuing downhill, responding as water does to the pull of gravity.
While we navigated towards Williams Cove, away from the calving glaciers, the fjord edges grew thicker and taller with green. This sequence of green has resulted from the bared rock being colonized first by lichens and mosses, then willows and alders, and as displayed on our afternoon walks, ultimately Sitka spruce and western hemlock.
Our landscape variances were not only miles but seemingly worlds apart, from a thunderous echoing moonscape to a moss carpeted forest absorbing and muffling the sounds of our footsteps and voices. With the ending of this first day we have barely touched on the diversity of landscape and life that Southeast Alaska offers the intrepid explorer, and that’s okay, we have the whole week ahead of us.
