Glacier Bay National Park — Lisa's (& Steve's) Travels

We spent an entire day (10 hours) in a small boat with one other customer, along with the captain and his 17 year old granddaughter.

Two hundred fifty years ago, Glacier Bay was all glacier and no bay. Today, the glacier has retreated north, leaving a handful of tidewater glaciers that are still quite impressive. We saw 5 of them, as we motored up about 55 miles from Bartlett Cove’s dock.

We saw only 2 other boats the entire time. I asked Captain Jim if in a “normal” season the waters are much busier, but he said, actually no. There’s so much space, that even with cruise ships here, there’s still lots of solitude.

Not too long after we started, we were treated to a pair of youngsters that were probably 3 years old and out on their own for their first season.

One of them is more skittish than the other, Captain said, and he loped away after just a few minutes.

As we kept heading north, brown furry heads would pop up and watch us pass by:

It was cool to see the layers left exposed on the rocky shores by low tide. The black layer is mussels, and the green/brown layer on the bottom is seaweed.

We then saw a larger solitary figure, most likely male:

…in contrast to the next group of a trio –

Yes, these are grizzlies. It was really special to watch them for quite awhile going about their business of turning over rocks, looking for mussels and small fish trying to hide.

The claws were very impressive –

Cute family tableau as we departed -

This is the backdrop when I’m not zoomed in:

see the “tiny” bears at the bottom center?

The sea otters float effortlessly on the surface, and are quite curious.

As we continued north, the waters became more turquoise due to the glacial silt added to the bottom, from the constant scouring.

Another fascinating sight was the stranded starfish from the extremely low tide. We guess they’re so “fat” because everything grows slower and bigger in cold water?

Captain Jim said we were really fortunate to see the Tufted Puffins nesting in some holes in the cliff face. Usually they’re hidden much deeper. (this picture is way blown up):

Next up on the critter parade were two nannies and their kids –

check out the teeny tiny horns on the kid

Momma mountain goat has got some impressive horns –

It was so nice that as we approached our first glacier, the water became like a bathtub.

For those who might be interested in names, that was Reid Glacier, while this one is Lamplugh Glacier:

We could only see Johns Hopkins Glacier from a distance, as the area near it was closed to boats for the time being, due to seal pupping.

However, I did manage to catch the splash of a piece that calved –

…when we were resting on the point we had hiked up.

Our trusty conveyance:

Now the topper of the trip (and our furthest point north; nearly at the Canadian border!) – Margerie Glacier.

I included the boat in this shot to “kinda” give a little bit of scale, but you really can’t appreciate its immensity unless you’re right up on it. Captain said it’s a mile wide!

I just loved the gorgeous blues and the wind sculpting –

The air temp was pretty cold as we moored out in front of this to eat our lunch.

Ahhhh…the whole puffin!

After our day on the water, we took the bikes at the lodge to get to a short trail on the other side of town. Gustavus is not a booming metropolis, with only 446 hardy souls.

Remember how I said we had gotten bear bells in Juneau? Well, they came in handy on this walk.

Steve estimated that the sow and her cubs were about 50 yards away. They were aware we were there, but didn’t seem bothered by our presence. Since we were at the same level as they were, I wasn’t able to get really clear pictures, but it was way cool to share the meadow with them!

This was the beach behind the lodge (where we saw all kinds of wildflowers during our stroll) -

Ending with the requisite sunset picture…but this was at 10 pm!