We were lucky that rain didn’t drop through the overcast as the low guttural roars of northern sea lions announced our approach to South Marble Island. This bird island has black oystercatchers and pigeon guillemots along with nesting black-legged kittiwakes and glaucous-winged gulls, but the favorites are always tufted puffins. Puffins possess outrageously large and colorful bills that make them the most intriguing member of a family of seabirds named the Alcids. These are northern hemisphere counterparts of penguins, although all the living species retain the ability to fly.
An exciting encounter unfolded as we entered Tidal Inlet. Two brown bears of similar size, one dark and the other quite blond, wandered near each other. We watched the two for some time as they walked along the shore and then disappeared into the trees. Our ship moved on but not far. Many of us carefully studied a small stream when pointed ears appeared from what looked like a rock. It was a sleeping wolf that awoke and looked around. While intently observing it, another object in the background caught our attention. It was the back of a sitting bear that stood up and looked around. Moments later our fourth bear of the day, a beautiful light-colored individual, emerged from the alders and ambled down a hillside. And still another fifth bear came walking down the river and joined the sitting bear. The wolf resumed its nap as we all buzzed with quiet discussions on what was happening. Motion in a rock pile 200 yards up a hillside gave away a sixth brown bear grazing on thick grass. Four bears and a wolf had materialized within five minutes of our arriving at a stream that had looked as though it was devoid of wildlife. Our silent approach and motivated searching plus a lot of luck had allowed us to really score.
The ship continued up the bay past mountain goats perched on rocky cliffs. The clouds opened for spectacular views of the high peaks of the Fairweather Range. Moisture-filled clouds blowing in from the Pacific Ocean rise, cool, and drop huge volumes of snow that keep these majestic peaks brilliantly white.
We soon arrived at the Johns Hopkins Glacier, so large and spectacular that it dominates your senses. The face is two miles wide and 200 feet tall, a wall of cracked and craggy ice. From there, your gaze can trace the path of the ice winding up as a white river with stripes like roads upon it. The glacier’s path led to a horizon line of snow-capped peaks. Loud cracks and thundering noises helped draw us even more deeply into the scene. It’s all just so enormous!
We wound through chunks of floating ice as we headed out of this beautiful fjord and resumed our exploration. Later we slowed down near a round island and watched a couple of dozen sea otters, some with young pups riding on their bellies. About 30 intricately-marked harlequin ducks scurried around the corner of the island to avoid our approach.
The finale was an after-dinner walk along forest trails of Bartlett Cove. A fascinating humpback whale skeleton has been reconstructed along the trail on the way to the National Park Service Visitor Center. We quietly left the park in darkness and silence.
