Misty Fjords National Monument
We feel as though we are intruding on the solitude of this place. The Sea Lion slips through an entrance of glassy water, pinched between granite walls that are barely a ship’s length apart. The passage opens into an expansive basin. We are completely enveloped on all sides by imposing walls, and above, by pendulous, roiling clouds that might give pause to even a seasoned Alaska bush pilot. Misty Fjords National Monument, perhaps the least visited Monument in the entire National Park system. Certainly this is not owing to a lack of grandeur. It is easy to imagine we are navigating our oceangoing vessel through a salt water inundated Yosemite Valley, and no one else is here. Towering spruce and cedars cling to parking lot size dimples in the middle of two thousand foot vertical slabs of rock. Some cannot cling hard enough as evidenced by log cluttered slide tracks. We strain to grasp the scale.
Yet scale is all we feel as shots of anchor chain rumble through the hawse pipe and we claim the upper end of Rudyerd Bay as our home for the day. Exploring further, using sea kayaks and Zodiacs, one group of kayaks heads for the mouth of a salmon carcass littered river delta. With some persistence and, hard paddling, we are able to move up-stream past several riffles. Battered, humpbacked pink salmon effortlessly fin their way past us towards chemically signatured headwaters.
The Zodiacs choose the west end of the bay to explore. Black hulls fade into the sheer size of this place. A wake in the calm is all that indicates their course towards another river outlet which sparkles with bird activity. And for good reason, there are golden, wet bears. Three are wading in a splashing ribbon of fish. With no indication that they are even remotely hungry, they continue to eat. The sow shows her cubs how it is done. Her roe-fed belly nearly dragging on the ground, she readies for hibernation. Almost reluctantly, she eats another salmon. Young bald eagles and glaucous-winged gulls clean up the plentiful scraps. This time of year, everyone has a fish.
Just as full of sensation as the delta wildlife is of salmon, we yank the hook and leave this magic gunk-hole behind, our last encounter with Alaska.
We feel as though we are intruding on the solitude of this place. The Sea Lion slips through an entrance of glassy water, pinched between granite walls that are barely a ship’s length apart. The passage opens into an expansive basin. We are completely enveloped on all sides by imposing walls, and above, by pendulous, roiling clouds that might give pause to even a seasoned Alaska bush pilot. Misty Fjords National Monument, perhaps the least visited Monument in the entire National Park system. Certainly this is not owing to a lack of grandeur. It is easy to imagine we are navigating our oceangoing vessel through a salt water inundated Yosemite Valley, and no one else is here. Towering spruce and cedars cling to parking lot size dimples in the middle of two thousand foot vertical slabs of rock. Some cannot cling hard enough as evidenced by log cluttered slide tracks. We strain to grasp the scale.
Yet scale is all we feel as shots of anchor chain rumble through the hawse pipe and we claim the upper end of Rudyerd Bay as our home for the day. Exploring further, using sea kayaks and Zodiacs, one group of kayaks heads for the mouth of a salmon carcass littered river delta. With some persistence and, hard paddling, we are able to move up-stream past several riffles. Battered, humpbacked pink salmon effortlessly fin their way past us towards chemically signatured headwaters.
The Zodiacs choose the west end of the bay to explore. Black hulls fade into the sheer size of this place. A wake in the calm is all that indicates their course towards another river outlet which sparkles with bird activity. And for good reason, there are golden, wet bears. Three are wading in a splashing ribbon of fish. With no indication that they are even remotely hungry, they continue to eat. The sow shows her cubs how it is done. Her roe-fed belly nearly dragging on the ground, she readies for hibernation. Almost reluctantly, she eats another salmon. Young bald eagles and glaucous-winged gulls clean up the plentiful scraps. This time of year, everyone has a fish.
Just as full of sensation as the delta wildlife is of salmon, we yank the hook and leave this magic gunk-hole behind, our last encounter with Alaska.
