Glacier Bay National Park
We picked up our National Park Service Ranger last night. That allowed us to enter the park at midnight and be “up bay” by early morning. We had great weather. Later in the day we had about 30 minutes of drizzle followed by blue sky and warmer temperatures.
The Lamplugh was our first glacier. We continued on out of the inlet and soon looked beyond to a view of the vast Grand Pacific Glacier. Its ice has carried a great burden from the soft rock where its snow collected to its terminus. People would rather see a squeaky clean glacier than a dirty one, so we cruised in close to Margerie.
Margerie Glacier is a slow flowing river of pinnacles that regularly topple into the sea. These steeples are caused by crevasses that crack the brittle icy surface into a tick-tack-toe pattern when seen from above. The resulting isolated spires or seracs often tower higher than a fifteen-story building. In time their foundations erode away in the relatively warm sea water then shatter as a thousand cracks simultaneously radiate out from a weakness. The structural integrity vanishes as tons of ice descend. The sea water at first sucks up the falling mass, then spreads out over the surrounding water and shoots skyward with a white explosion of spray. We watched two of these superb displays, glacial in scale.
The calls of kittiwakes on a nearby cliff face drew us on. These beautiful gulls nest precariously upon narrow ledges in large colonies. Pigeon guillemots flew by with their red feet sticking out behind. Tufted and horned puffins were there for all of us to enjoy. Their large bills are perfect for catching and holding numerous fish to transport back to their young.
It would not be a complete day in the wilds of Alaska without the presence of bears. Today we watched ten brown bears and saw three black bears. Soon after turning south and entering Russell Cut we found two subadult brown bears foraging in the intertidal. Yesterday many of our younger guests were doing the same activity, but they weren’t eating the morsels they found. What a waste. For bears, this is an important resource. Salmon are not always available. Low tides always provide intertidal morsels like small fish, marine worms and crabs. All the bear has to do is turn the rocks over. Mussels cover the tops of the largest rocks in the photograph, those too big to turn. The smaller rocks probably don’t have such a bounty of food. It is easy to see in the photograph that the middle sized rocks with out mussels have been rolled over. Foraging bears make a significant change to the intertidal ecology of these mussel beds by their rock turning. We watched six different “brownies” constantly turning rocks over. Over the months and years many foraging bears could make quite an impact.
Bears are not only connected to a wide spread ecological web but even to our psyche. They epitomize our perception of wilderness, the way it was before the arrival of humans. Possibly that connection comes from our inner fear of them, the all too well remembered stories of those that have been torn apart or even eaten by them. They have a merciless disregard for our importance. They aren’t aware that we love them for their round faces, round ears, forward facing eyes, and that we make them into stuffed animals played with by children. If you want someone to pay attention to the explanation of your Alaskan trip, tell them a good bear story.
After dinner we walked about at Bartlett Cove in the dim evening light, a good place to accidentally run into a black bear.
We picked up our National Park Service Ranger last night. That allowed us to enter the park at midnight and be “up bay” by early morning. We had great weather. Later in the day we had about 30 minutes of drizzle followed by blue sky and warmer temperatures.
The Lamplugh was our first glacier. We continued on out of the inlet and soon looked beyond to a view of the vast Grand Pacific Glacier. Its ice has carried a great burden from the soft rock where its snow collected to its terminus. People would rather see a squeaky clean glacier than a dirty one, so we cruised in close to Margerie.
Margerie Glacier is a slow flowing river of pinnacles that regularly topple into the sea. These steeples are caused by crevasses that crack the brittle icy surface into a tick-tack-toe pattern when seen from above. The resulting isolated spires or seracs often tower higher than a fifteen-story building. In time their foundations erode away in the relatively warm sea water then shatter as a thousand cracks simultaneously radiate out from a weakness. The structural integrity vanishes as tons of ice descend. The sea water at first sucks up the falling mass, then spreads out over the surrounding water and shoots skyward with a white explosion of spray. We watched two of these superb displays, glacial in scale.
The calls of kittiwakes on a nearby cliff face drew us on. These beautiful gulls nest precariously upon narrow ledges in large colonies. Pigeon guillemots flew by with their red feet sticking out behind. Tufted and horned puffins were there for all of us to enjoy. Their large bills are perfect for catching and holding numerous fish to transport back to their young.
It would not be a complete day in the wilds of Alaska without the presence of bears. Today we watched ten brown bears and saw three black bears. Soon after turning south and entering Russell Cut we found two subadult brown bears foraging in the intertidal. Yesterday many of our younger guests were doing the same activity, but they weren’t eating the morsels they found. What a waste. For bears, this is an important resource. Salmon are not always available. Low tides always provide intertidal morsels like small fish, marine worms and crabs. All the bear has to do is turn the rocks over. Mussels cover the tops of the largest rocks in the photograph, those too big to turn. The smaller rocks probably don’t have such a bounty of food. It is easy to see in the photograph that the middle sized rocks with out mussels have been rolled over. Foraging bears make a significant change to the intertidal ecology of these mussel beds by their rock turning. We watched six different “brownies” constantly turning rocks over. Over the months and years many foraging bears could make quite an impact.
Bears are not only connected to a wide spread ecological web but even to our psyche. They epitomize our perception of wilderness, the way it was before the arrival of humans. Possibly that connection comes from our inner fear of them, the all too well remembered stories of those that have been torn apart or even eaten by them. They have a merciless disregard for our importance. They aren’t aware that we love them for their round faces, round ears, forward facing eyes, and that we make them into stuffed animals played with by children. If you want someone to pay attention to the explanation of your Alaskan trip, tell them a good bear story.
After dinner we walked about at Bartlett Cove in the dim evening light, a good place to accidentally run into a black bear.
