Tracy Arm, Sawyer Glaciers, and Williams Cove
Our guests are always in for great experiences on their first outing in Alaska, especially when it’s in a magnificent place like Tracy Arm. The scenery here is so gigantic that it can overwhelm the faint at heart. Incredibly resistant granites, gneiss, and schists have been left much as they were when 5000 feet of ice bore down on them during the last ice age. Glaciers flow downhill and follow the easiest route on their descent. The unrelenting pressure over time was enough to carve through rock that we effortlessly floated past. Grooves and scars gouged by specific rocks can be read like long petroglyphs from another era. We soon saw the glaciers that still hold rock-shaping tools.
On our way we passed a cascading waterfall erupting out of a narrow opening below a glacially carved hanging valley. The stream poured out onto a small sandy beach. A young brown bear was nearby, scraping barnacles from intertidal rocks and lapping up the resulting soup. This was a special sighting, because black bears are more frequently found in this area than brownies. We watched for a few minutes and then were surprised by a river otter that scampered along the beach, re-entered the water, and swam upstream out of sight. Soon it was back in view, loping along the shore before it curled up for a minute and then jumped back into the water. This was all quite remarkable when you consider that it was still before breakfast on our first day afloat.
The National Geographic Sea Bird traveled on to a stunning view of South Sawyer Glacier. Patches of blue sky, morning light, and wispy clouds framed a broad and crevassed river of ice that was poised and ready to dump tons of ice into the fiord. Harbor seal mothers lay with their plump pups on the pancake-flat bergy bits that crowded the end of the fiord. We then moved back and over to nearby Sawyer Glacier and readied ourselves for Zodiac trips to closer encounters with ice. The massive ice front of glaciers can be as high as a 20-story building and far wider than you may think. Tremendous forces involved in a rifle-like snap may have been generated by a tiny shift of thousands of tons of ice. The 15-foot-high icebergs we passed would tower to a height of 105 feet if the underwater portion was balanced upright on land. As the Zodiacs dodged the floating ice, black-and-white pigeon guillemots, a common nesting seabird here, flew past or stood on ledges and stared at us. Their red feet match the color of the inside of their bills.
The afternoon had its own unique experiences. On the way out of the fjord we stopped at a waterfall with a hole in the granite ground by millstones rolling around in a confined space. The ship’s officers pushed in for a very close view. After anchoring in a protected spot called William’s Cove, we split into groups that either set out to explore the forest or hike to a beaver dam, while others slid into the solitude that only a kayak and quiet water can provide. The shoreline was enjoyable to explore and included a small waterfall that became a goal for many of the paddlers. After dinner we cruised into Stephens Passage and encountered a humpback whale traveling slowly in the fading light. When viewing became difficult we made our way south.
