Glacier Bay
The National Geographic Sea Bird docked at Bartlett Cove to pick up our Park Service and Tlingit guides early on the misty morning of May 25th. We entered Glacier Bay before 6:00 a.m., then steamed north past the immense terminal moraine and toward the Marble Islands. After breakfast we slid slowly past South Marble Island where we saw the dramatically polished surface of the roche moutannée carved by the ice which just 250 years ago filled the entire bay.
As the ship slowly sailed along the eastern shore of the island, we watched several large groups of northern sea lions hauled out on the rocks and enjoyed horned and tufted puffins around us and on the rocks. We followed the eastern shore of Glacier Bay past Tidal Inlet where we spotted two goats high above the water, a bald eagle near its nest, and a large black bear crossing a steep meadow just below the clouds.
The ship sailed on to the rounded grey Paleozoic marble of Gloomy Knob. As we contemplated the tilted and fractured sedimentary layering, we spotted numerous mountain goats dotting the steep slopes. During the late morning we continued north toward the glaciers and spotted a male and a female brown bear traversing the shoreline of the large alluvial fan east of Russell Island. The bears continued along the shore as we turned north once again past the steep mountains cloaked by glacial moraines which have been modified into vast alluvial fans.
We ate lunch during the trip up Tarr Inlet to the Margerie and Grand Pacific glaciers. As we approached the wall of ice the ship forged ahead through a sea of small icebergs known as growlers. The ship paused in the calm ice-filled waters and we watched and listened as the Margerie Glacier calved. The dramatic cliff of blue ice attested to the continual calving and flow of ice into the water.
After enjoying the glacial front bound by placid water dotted with ice below and by a low layer of clouds above, we turned south for a view of the ice-choked fjord and terminus of Lamplugh Glacier, near the entrance to Johns Hopkins Inlet. We made our way south during evening recap and dinner, then docked at Bartlett Cove for the annual opening of the Glacier Bay Visitor Center.
