Glacier Bay National Park
We awoke to brilliantly lit mountain scenery and blue skies. We cruised by high gray cliffs with a filigree of beige as we entered Geike Inlet. Some of the snow-covered mountains in this area are dolomite, a tortured limestone that started as massive amounts of coral growing on volcanic islands in the South Pacific. They were transported here riding on oceanic crust that crushed against Alaska between 200 and 120 million years ago. For now they act as the substrate for bears to walk upon and to surround some of the water we voyage through.
Soon after we entered Geike inlet we found a handsome black bear selectively grazing on newly emerging plants. Its beautiful coat was shiny and luxuriant and its amble was slow and deliberate. It peered over the water at us once and completed a visual connection. It was the most we had in common, and that lasted only for a brief instant.
While some were entranced by the bear, others watched a nearby eagle in a large stick nest high in a cottonwood. Just the head could be seen. It sat tight like incubating birds do in late May and June. This is the easy part of what lies ahead for them in the next two and a half months.
We next crossed the large bay to Gloomy Knob, another large outcrop of dolomite. Mountain goats grazed or loafed near glacially carved cliffs. First we saw two adults, then singles and pairs with yearlings, and then more of those combinations. There was then a group of about twenty and later even more, but no new kids yet.
We passed rafts of hundreds and once over a thousand surf scoters. Lines of black-legged kittiwakes flew past as well as long white strands of phalaropes weaving out of sight. Small groups of scaup, shovelers, and Pacific loons also flew by. They sometimes appeared suddenly alongside the ship. They soon shrank to distant specs then vanished, always to the north, flying in earnest like they were almost out of time.
Glacier Bay ends at the debris-covered Grand Pacific Glacier and the pristine white pinnacles of the Margerie Glacier to its left. Chunks of ice tumbled from above, thundering down into the sea. White fireworks followed; explosions of ice shooting upward and outward, pulling tails of water high into the air. We watched several calvings, often preceded by the sounds of,” There are some pieces falling, oh, a bigger one, wow, the whole section is going, ohhhh”.
It’s difficult to describe Glacier Bay on a clear day. There is so much scenery. The potential exists for a hundred national parks if pieces could be removed and transported. Throughout the day a sawtooth skyline spread out before us, hundreds of beautiful horns, arêtes, rounded peaks, flat ones, triangular jobs, some totally ice covered, or snow covered, or rocky yet magnificently bound.
After dinner we hiked around the Bartlet Cove area. It was only about 200 years ago a glacier ended here. It left all sorts of interesting attractions to be explored like glacial erratics, and terminal moraine and kettle ponds. This was the finale that consumed us and made sleep come easily.
We awoke to brilliantly lit mountain scenery and blue skies. We cruised by high gray cliffs with a filigree of beige as we entered Geike Inlet. Some of the snow-covered mountains in this area are dolomite, a tortured limestone that started as massive amounts of coral growing on volcanic islands in the South Pacific. They were transported here riding on oceanic crust that crushed against Alaska between 200 and 120 million years ago. For now they act as the substrate for bears to walk upon and to surround some of the water we voyage through.
Soon after we entered Geike inlet we found a handsome black bear selectively grazing on newly emerging plants. Its beautiful coat was shiny and luxuriant and its amble was slow and deliberate. It peered over the water at us once and completed a visual connection. It was the most we had in common, and that lasted only for a brief instant.
While some were entranced by the bear, others watched a nearby eagle in a large stick nest high in a cottonwood. Just the head could be seen. It sat tight like incubating birds do in late May and June. This is the easy part of what lies ahead for them in the next two and a half months.
We next crossed the large bay to Gloomy Knob, another large outcrop of dolomite. Mountain goats grazed or loafed near glacially carved cliffs. First we saw two adults, then singles and pairs with yearlings, and then more of those combinations. There was then a group of about twenty and later even more, but no new kids yet.
We passed rafts of hundreds and once over a thousand surf scoters. Lines of black-legged kittiwakes flew past as well as long white strands of phalaropes weaving out of sight. Small groups of scaup, shovelers, and Pacific loons also flew by. They sometimes appeared suddenly alongside the ship. They soon shrank to distant specs then vanished, always to the north, flying in earnest like they were almost out of time.
Glacier Bay ends at the debris-covered Grand Pacific Glacier and the pristine white pinnacles of the Margerie Glacier to its left. Chunks of ice tumbled from above, thundering down into the sea. White fireworks followed; explosions of ice shooting upward and outward, pulling tails of water high into the air. We watched several calvings, often preceded by the sounds of,” There are some pieces falling, oh, a bigger one, wow, the whole section is going, ohhhh”.
It’s difficult to describe Glacier Bay on a clear day. There is so much scenery. The potential exists for a hundred national parks if pieces could be removed and transported. Throughout the day a sawtooth skyline spread out before us, hundreds of beautiful horns, arêtes, rounded peaks, flat ones, triangular jobs, some totally ice covered, or snow covered, or rocky yet magnificently bound.
After dinner we hiked around the Bartlet Cove area. It was only about 200 years ago a glacier ended here. It left all sorts of interesting attractions to be explored like glacial erratics, and terminal moraine and kettle ponds. This was the finale that consumed us and made sleep come easily.
