A fine, gray, Alaska morning found us crossing the bar of Tracy Arm and almost immediately entering Williams Cove. After breakfast, and with a fine drizzle, we began a series of hikes in this temperate rain forest. Some of us preferred to kayak around the huge bay, watching a big waterfall and a series of gulls next to it. Others wanted to enjoy an inflatable ride around the bay!
The hikes took us along an incredibly muddy path and into the forest of gigantic trees. These were mostly Sitka spruce, with many smaller hemlocks trying to grow up to the same height as the spruce, and gain some sunlight. The industrious work of red squirrels was plainly visible in the form of enormous quantities of spruce cones on the ground, in the same vicinity. Devil’s club plants dared us to approach them, so protected by their infamous spines.
Around midday we were en route to Tracy Arm, to enjoy one of the most beautiful fjords in North America. The low clouds made the scenery mysterious, but the high walls of the fjord made us want to get to the interior part faster.
It took us approximately two hours traveling along the imposing sights of this fjord to reach Sawyer Glacier and South Sawyer Glacier. This first one has receded very much in the last few years, and is not easily visible anymore. But we sailed on towards South Sawyer Glacier and suddenly there it was, a fantastically blue and white glacier, forced between two mountains devoid of all vegetation, through the scouring effect of this ice mass.
Immediately after lunch, we set off in our inflatables to visit the proximity of this huge ice face, in two groups, one after the other. An hour-and-a-half later we exchanged groups, and were interrupted, just as in the first round, by beautiful Viking ladies wielding hot chocolate pitchers with an added touch of WOW! We allowed them to seduce us with these items, and as they sailed off, and we upended our cups!
But we were lucky, as during both tours we were able to see quite big splashes caused by falling ice off the face of the glaciers, called “calving.” Cameras screamed and we did too!! What a delectable afternoon. Of course, it was not the only thing we saw, as on many of the flatter ice-floes we encountered harbor seals watching our antics. And up on the face of one of the mountains, we espied a female mountain goat and her small kid, who ran up the face of this cliff faster than the mother. What a day!
