Glacier Bay National Park
Our entrance into Glacier Bay happened early in the morning on a gray, cold day. It did not presage what we were to see inside! We slowly approached Boulder Island and began to see the hundreds of heads of sea otters bobbing up and down in the weak waves, among the enormous segments of bull kelp. These animals have increased in numbers here in Glacier Bay almost exponentially; today a number of 1500 animals are calculated for this population. And on we went, to soon meet South Marble Island, where a great number of birds surprised our attention: horned and tufted puffins, cormorants, murres, American oystercatchers, different gull species, and even eagles, come to harass the poor cliff-dwellers. But that wasn’t all, as a big number of Steller sea lions had us hear their groaning and moaning, as they pushed each other for a better position on the rock, or just for the fun of it. And it is these magnificent big animals, fisheaters that have had their population so drastically fall to one ninth in the outer rookeries of Alaska. The reason is still obscure, but it probably has to do with food availability, principally pollock.
On we went into the bay, where we slowed down and stopped momentarily at a big bulk of gray rock, probably all dolomite, called Gloomy Knob. Here we saw mountain goats, clambering up the so sheer cliffs, out in the fog.
And on we went to the Russell Cut, where to our surprise we saw a swimming brown bear, almost at Russell Island. He eventually made it, having swum 0.3 miles across the icy waters of the bay. Further ahead, during lunch, we reached our final destination of the day: Margerie and the Grand Pacific Glaciers. One pure white, the neighbor black and prepossessing, ominous in its size (two miles across). Here we stopped and waited for the glacier to calf, which it did in various occasions, with a sound explosion called sumdum (white thunder) by the natives. Boooom! And everybody was happy to see and to photograph a calving of this size.
Richard Lyman wrote to this big event:
“Upstream we glide. What a skillful pilot!
Ice blocks now fill our fjord.—
Margerie’s face is missing many teeth.
She sure needs orthodontia.”
We then visited what is called “The Jaws”, with an incredible view of Johns Hopkins Glacier, and then sailed on down towards the entrance to the bay, at the visitor’s center, where we had short hikes.
Our entrance into Glacier Bay happened early in the morning on a gray, cold day. It did not presage what we were to see inside! We slowly approached Boulder Island and began to see the hundreds of heads of sea otters bobbing up and down in the weak waves, among the enormous segments of bull kelp. These animals have increased in numbers here in Glacier Bay almost exponentially; today a number of 1500 animals are calculated for this population. And on we went, to soon meet South Marble Island, where a great number of birds surprised our attention: horned and tufted puffins, cormorants, murres, American oystercatchers, different gull species, and even eagles, come to harass the poor cliff-dwellers. But that wasn’t all, as a big number of Steller sea lions had us hear their groaning and moaning, as they pushed each other for a better position on the rock, or just for the fun of it. And it is these magnificent big animals, fisheaters that have had their population so drastically fall to one ninth in the outer rookeries of Alaska. The reason is still obscure, but it probably has to do with food availability, principally pollock.
On we went into the bay, where we slowed down and stopped momentarily at a big bulk of gray rock, probably all dolomite, called Gloomy Knob. Here we saw mountain goats, clambering up the so sheer cliffs, out in the fog.
And on we went to the Russell Cut, where to our surprise we saw a swimming brown bear, almost at Russell Island. He eventually made it, having swum 0.3 miles across the icy waters of the bay. Further ahead, during lunch, we reached our final destination of the day: Margerie and the Grand Pacific Glaciers. One pure white, the neighbor black and prepossessing, ominous in its size (two miles across). Here we stopped and waited for the glacier to calf, which it did in various occasions, with a sound explosion called sumdum (white thunder) by the natives. Boooom! And everybody was happy to see and to photograph a calving of this size.
Richard Lyman wrote to this big event:
“Upstream we glide. What a skillful pilot!
Ice blocks now fill our fjord.—
Margerie’s face is missing many teeth.
She sure needs orthodontia.”
We then visited what is called “The Jaws”, with an incredible view of Johns Hopkins Glacier, and then sailed on down towards the entrance to the bay, at the visitor’s center, where we had short hikes.
