Wow! What a day! Incredible! We woke up in the Johns Hopkins inlet of Glacier Bay National Park, a gorgeous glacial fjord choked full of calved ice chunks. The ice was too thick to push through, so we turned north into Tarr inlet. By the time everyone was awake and on deck, we were approaching the face of Margerie glacier in brilliant light. High peaks rose thousands of feet in snowy, glacier-cloaked glory as the sun and shadows played across ice and rock. Black-legged kittiwakes fluttered around the base of the glacier waiting for the ice to calve and stun fish; a few seals eyeballed us warily; a puffin made a brief appearance. After a very excited early morning our park ranger Janene and cultural interpreter Faith gave a short introduction to the bay and the day.
The rest of the morning was spent searching for wildlife and soaking in the warm sun and scenery. We passed through areas of fog resting on the water's surface with sun burning above, all the time watching the high peaks of the Fairweather mountains slowly unveiled from their cloudy wrappings. We found a disappearing brown bear closely followed by several high mountain goats frisking about the high cliffs. Next came an entire family of brown bears—mom and three cubs! The cubs rolled and tussled and wrestled and swam in circles in a stream with salmon leaping about them. Truly, this was one of the highlights of our expedition!
Following lunch we journeyed deep into Tidal inlet to see a waterfall and find many thousands of surf scoters. On the way out of the inlet we made a million dollar discovery: a gray wolf walking on the beach, which promptly settled in for a nap. Everyone got spectacular views of the snoozing wolf, which periodically raised its head to eye us before going back to resting.
Later in the afternoon we visited South Marble island, which was draped in growling belching sea lions and excitable puffins, cormorants, and gulls. The evening ended with our video chronicle preview, farewell from our guest ranger and interpreter, and walks in Bartlett Cove.
