If you're used to spring down below, its arrival here takes some getting used to. Though folks had on shorts yesterday, extra layers were the order of the day once we steamed into the bay this morning. At first the morning was brisk but, as we processed up the bay and the breeze picked up, the temperature dropped from brisk to noticeable to worth commenting on (which we all did). As we neared the glaciers, the cottonwoods still wore the fresh yellow-green of new growth and snow still lay down to sea level in some protected spots. The upper arms of the bay were choked with ice bergs and we witnessed more and bigger glacier calving from Margerie than anyone, staff, crew or the veteran ranger with over 700 trips to Margerie could remember. But the sun shown fitfully and the clouds were high and not too thick, offering grand vistas all around.
Given the lingering of winter (and the fact that it just retreats a short way up into the mountains at the height of summer), it isn't that unusual to have a beast the color of winter hanging out on the cliffs above the sea. I live in goat country near Yellowstone, so I don't generally think of them as seaside residents, but these hills are as steep as any in the Beartooths and that's what goats are interested in. Steep is safe if you're a mountain goat. Mountains are so much a part of their nature that new born kids will, as soon as they can stand up, begin climbing on their mothers; provided the mother has the audacity to give birth on level ground. Now, with many full days of living already behind it, this kid is ready, willing and able to trot along from the sea below to the ridgeline above with no trouble. In fact, it will probably travel about twice as far as its mother since her route will not include all the rambling, side trips and adventures of the kid.
By the time winter arrives, this little one will be a big kid - literally and figuratively. By this time next year, it will be facing all the risks of a teenager moving out of the house for the first time. But, if it's still around the following spring (hormones and gravity can be a deadly combination, especially for young billys) it will be well on the road to responsible adulthood and likely will live to see its own kids running up and down the vertical walls of Glacier Bay. May we all come back to see this kid's kids and grandkids on another day like today, one of grandly calving glaciers, puffins, sea lions, bears and beasts the color of winter.
