Our day began at midnight. A year ago, Lindblad Expeditions booked this exact date to enter Glacier Bay National Park, and we didn’t waste a minute of our allotted time in this World Heritage Site. By weighing anchor and steaming into national park waters as the day began and transiting 65 miles up the bay under an aurora sky, we arrived at Margerie Glacier by breakfast.
We were joined on deck by Ranger Dan, who described some of the specifics: Margerie is a mile wide and 200 feet tall at its face. It creeps down from its catchment in the vast Fairweather Range at about 7 feet/day, carving the land as it goes. Unlike most Alaskan glaciers that are in rapid retreat, Margerie’s position is holding pretty steady, meaning it also has to lose 7 feet/day off its face – that is, it calves thousands of tons of ice into the ocean daily. By the time you hear the calving, it’s already over, so we stared fixedly at the glowing blue glacial face, waiting. Several smaller calving events kept our attention, until a massive calving thundered across the fjord, drawing our gasps and cheers. It drew in the black-legged kittiwakes as well, who flew in to forage for critters stirred up by the explosive icy splashdown.
After breakfast, a much different tidewater glacier awaited us: Johns Hopkins, with its dramatic bands of sediment that show where tributary glaciers have joined into the main stem. With so much rock on the move, it’s easy to see the erosive force glaciers have in this landscape. Hundreds of harbor seals drifted stoically with the tide on their icebergs, apparently unmoved by the glacial scene and the high peaks.
Heading south from the tidewater glaciers, the National Geographic Sea Lion slowed at Gloomy Knob, and all souls aboard joined in the search for wildlife. The sun was out, the rocks lit up in steep brilliance. A few mountain goats wandered the cliffs. Near the top of the granite, we suddenly spotted a brown bear, our first of the trip! Back and forth he wandered before stopping directly on the ridgeline and looking regally into the distance, as though posing in profile for our eager cameras and binoculars. After he ambled off, we took a moment to admire the Fairweather Mountains, ironically named by Captain James Cook because today was one of very few fair weather days when the highest coastal mountains in the world come into view.
This afternoon, as we steamed out of Glacier Bay, Ranger Dan talked with us on deck: “I like to ask everyone I meet on these programs why they come to Alaska. I’ve been watching this place for 40 years and, when I talk to you, I get to see it through your eyes. It reminds me to be grateful for my amazing home.”
