A greeting through warm, partly blue skies and a family of Alaskan brown bears wasn’t a bad way to start the day. This place where bears are common gave us a special surprise when what seemed like a bright boulder stood up to reveal itself as a blond cub. Grizzly, brown, and even black bears will sometimes wear a shade that is not completely accurate to their given name. They can range from brown, cinnamon, to completely blond.
After our first activities of the day, we slowly made our way through Tracy Arm, a place living out of time. With every turn, a daunting mountain range towers over the ship showing off its scars from the very glacier we are seeking. Ocean meets mountains in this part of the world, and when that happens we are able to gaze upon a handful of ecosystems in one area. With such a dramatic change in elevation, the ocean gives way to high elevations with peaks still encased in a winter jacket. When a combination of almost no flat land, steep rock faces, and rounded mountain tops come together in a place such as this, it provides many unique spectacles. Waterfalls: with nowhere else to run, these snowcaps and high altitude glaciers contribute to the ever changing landscape, guiding the water from the very top all the way back down to sea level. Hundreds of waterfalls creep down where they eventually join together for the final push into the ocean.
What seems effortless making our way through the fjord, I couldn’t help but feel that we are taking these waterways for granted when compared to the thousands of years’ worth of glacial movement that we just managed to travel in an hour’s time. After using its pathway and admiring its handiwork, we round the bend for the grand reveal of the artist itself: South Sawyer Glacier. The grand National Geographic Sea Bird seems insignificant while in the path of this fossil. The thunderous cracks and calving grabs the attention of its onlookers but does not ever seem to faze the hundreds of indifferent harbor seals.
This place was not about to let us write it off without another giant bidding us goodnight. A few humpback whales bid us a well evening. Subdued and happy to be dining their own dinner, they seem just fine to let us into their world while the sun set over the mountains.
