Day 10: Glacier National Park

Monday, September 10th.  Our second full day at sea included a trip inside Glacier Bay National Park.  Unfortunately there were one or two passengers who had medical emergencies overnight, so we increased speed so we could medivac them at the ranger station at the mouth of Glacier Bay.  We stayed put for an hour or two while they were taken off in a launch and we welcomed aboard three park rangers for our trip up the 40-mile long Glacier Bay

 

 

We enjoyed the scenery during the three hour trip as the Ranger narrated the trip from the bridge.  The clouds in the mountains and the dozen or so glaciers we passed kept the scenery ever-changing and gorgeous.

 

Even though there are a hundred or so Humpback whales feed inside Glacier Bay each year, we didn’t see any.  The water mammals we did see was Harbor Seals and dozens of Sea Otters (below).

 

When George Vancouver charted this area in the 1790s, Glacier Bay was totally blocked and covered with a huge glacier 1000 feet thick.  100 years before that, native villages were driven out of the bay by the advancing ice of the Little Ice age.  When John Muir returned in 1879, it the Glacier had retreaded 25 miles in to Russell Island which stuck out like a rocky knob from the middle of the ice face.  The glacier is still moving backwards and forwards.  Back in 1925 the Grand Pacific Glacier was a few mile back from its current location, back into Canadian territory.  One thing this means is scientists have used this area extensively to study the revegitation of land after the retreat of a glacier.  Traveling from the mouth of Glacier Bay to the back is like travelling back 250 years as the coastal forests get younger and younger until right by the Grand Pacific Glacier the forests are only a few decades old.

 

The Grand Pacific Glacier, viewed from afar as we approached the neck of Tarr Inlet in Glacier Bay.

 

The face of the Grand Pacific Glacier, with a tour boat in front for scale.  The Grand Pacific is totally covered in black rock that it picked up on its 25 mile journey to the sea.  At this point the face is about a mile wide and 150 feet high.

 

Right next to the Grand Pacific is the Margerie Glacier.  This glacier is a beautiful blue color and we sat in front of this glacier for an hour or so as the ship slowly turned so we could all view it from the deck or our balconies.  We hoped to see an iceberg calf off the side, and while there we heard many thunderous cracks and small avalanches of ice into the water, but no dramatic calving.  It was some 10 or 15 degrees colder in front of the glacier.  Breathtaking.

 

I had some time to snap some pictures of birds while we watched, including

Glaucous Winged Gull

 

Kittiwake

 

Bald Eagle

The birding wasn’t great this trip, a combination of not really being outside a tour situation for most of the time and not having guides that knew much about birds.  Maybe when I come back, someday.

Then we enjoyed the scenery on our way back out to drop off the Rangers and continue on our way.