We awoke to another brilliant morning near the mouth of Tracy Arm. Shallow water here catches the biggest bergs from three glaciers, and we were pleased to see our first monumental ice.
We anchored in Williams Cove and many went ashore to walk through Alaska’s coastal temperate rain forest. Hemlocks and ferns were beautiful and impressive, but generally people were happiest with seeing bear droppings, some gratifyingly fresh.
Meanwhile, others explored Williams Cove by boat. Both kayakers and rubber-boat cruisers got close views of a handsome berg. A few lucky kayaks were close when this berg suddenly rolled, exposing its blue belly.
In the afternoon we travelled up Tracy Arm. Granite and glacial ice combine to create some of Southeast Alaska’s finest scenery. Huge walls soared above us, striated by the stony underside of the glacier during the recent Ice Age. Rounded peaks, a mile above us, showed that nearly all this topography was smothered in ice not so many thousand years ago.
As were proceeded, the ice became thicker and thicker until it choked the fjord. At that point we dropped our little rubber boats for a closer look at the glacier.
At close range, we swept past icebergs of every sort. Some were tiny, no bigger than a mitten. Others would have made a spacious—if precarious—tennis court. Sculpted by melt, they called to mind castles or swans. Some were snowy, others like a February city street, others like a hillock of sapphire.
Near the glacier we found the wildlife that prefers an icy or stony place to live. Harbor seals lay on icebergs and mountain goats scrambled over the hillsides.
Under bright sunshine, South Sawyer glacier looked a jagged cascade of pale pinnacles. Glaciers may calve more frequently in spring, since melting snow lubricates their flow. We found the glacier to be unusually active, with regular icefalls. Most of us we’re luck enough to see at least one great calving that rocked our boats with its waves.
Southeast Alaska is spectacular throughout, but Tracy Arm and its glaciers merit many a superlative even in a great land.
