Tracy Arm, Southeast Alaska
The first light of the day found us at the entrance to Tracy Arm. This spectacular fjord is considered the most beautiful fjord of North America. Sheer vertical dark-gray granite walls towered above us as we sailed in ever deeper. The temperate rainforest took all those places available between the fissures and small u-shaped valleys. The rest was majestic gray rock.
At about 0600 Hs we were already in view of Sawyer's Glacier, a tidewater glacier that has been retreating in the last years, and is now flanked by polished granite and alaskite, completely devoid of plant life. At higher elevations and further away at sea level, one can see the pioneering plants like mosses and small weeds, as well as the bushy Sitka alder starting to take over barren land, making up topsoil.
Our observations were momentarily interrupted by breakfast, but we were back up on the bow of the M.V. Sea Lion in no time. We immediately started to load Zodiacs, those fantastic rubberized boats, and set off towards the next glacier, called South Sawyer Glacier, which has been very actively calving and filling the inlet near it with small pieces of ice called "growlers". Slowly we approached the face of this glacier, skirting small ice flows with mother and calf harbor seals, those marvelous sea mammals so well adapted to life in the ocean. This species bears its young on a small ice flow at this time of the year, suckles it almost constantly with extremely high-fat (65%) milk, and weans it approximately three weeks later. During this time we saw some calving of the glacier, small and big pieces of ice falling off its face, amidst a huge splash and a resounding roar, called "white thunder" by the natives.
The trip back out of Tracy Arm was in itself another adventure, including dozens of incredible waterfalls, blue icebergs and textbook geology, with rounded glacier "valleys" and glacier scratched granite walls.
The afternoon was enjoyed with kayaking, hiking in the forest and watching red squirrels eat the cones of the Sitka spruce!
