I just got back from a canoe trip to Glacier Bay! I did one last year at this time and its becoming an annual thing, I think. We have a nice little canoe, a 15 ft aluminum "Mokercraft" that looks suspiciously like a smokercraft 15, but if you look at the plastic tag on it, you can tell that it is different. Its an old dumpy thing, but it fits two people and a bunch of gear. We used buckets for hauling gear around and keeping it relatively dry, and also bear cans to keep the bears out from the food. We got 10 bear cans because we brought so much food. It actually works out well to store the food in a few places on the boat in the cans, and we can pack two rows of four across and then have two extras in the front and back, so 10 works out quite well.
The beginning of a trip is always hectic, so we got moving and took a flight from Juneau to Gustavus, then hopped on the bus that takes folks to the Glacier Bay Lodge and then did all the things the rangers make you do in order to get a backcountry permit, and packed up everything, and then took off paddling. I had heard that my friends on Laysan, who I met in Hawaii in 2012, were in the bay and we paddled to try to meet them and get a ride up bay. It turned out quite nicely. The first thing we did was the most risky, because the weather can turn rough very quickly, but since we had nice weather to start we crossed the bay at a fairly narrow point. There is a lot of current that flows there, at Sitakaday Narrows, and we ended up going 9 kts according to my GPS on my phone. It was starting to get kinda late by the time we got in to shore, but we managed to find a nice whale and a moose before landing. Then we went for a little walk and I found some nice plants I couldn't recognise....
And a fungus, I believe...
Anyways, we set off the next morning to try and catch up with Laysan. The weather was turning for the worse, but there wasn't much wind.
We found a bear as we paddled along, a nice Black Bear.
And then as it began to rain, we got to the Laysan and they welcomed us aboard and had heat and we stayed the night on their diesel duck boat. Its a very sturdy boat about 49 ft long and it has sails if you want to sail it, but it is mostly a motor boat. Its also steel and very nice inside. So we dried off and the next day they drove us north up to Reid Inlet, where I had known the Wilderness Discoverer was going to be in the afternoon. I figured I could try to get a ride further up bay with them, to the end of the bay. So we arrived at Reid Inlet and went for a little walk while we waited for the Wilderness Discoverer (the WND) to get done with afternoon operations, and we went up to the Reid Glacier.
It had been raining a ton all night and day and the water flowing under the glacier was coming out furiously. The rivers surged and spat ice out and nearly caught us up as we went close to investigate, but we ran away before the flooding could get us. It was wild and crazy, as a glacier should be.
Then we hopped aboard the WND and they fed us dinner and took us up to Margerie Glacier, which is the northernmost point in the bay. As they stopped to give their folks a look at the ice, we hopped out the back and paddled off into the sunset. Here's a picture of them looking at the glacier
Then we found a spot to camp and pulled up everything and set up the tents. In the background of this photo is a valley and that's where the glacier comes down, but there is a moraine blocking the view of it directly. We could still hear it plenty though.
The next day we went for a walk up the Grand Pacific Glacier, which is adjacent to Margerie, and we found some neat holes and places where water flows up and down.
And a few nice crevasses. The glacier is covered with landslide material, or Moraine material, or stuff that the glacier is transporting down. Its a conveyor belt of erosion and the glacier brings stuff down. Sometimes the stuff is in the bottom and it gets ground up and turns to dust and mud, and sometimes its just sitting on top and isn't rounded at all by the motion.
So we continued along until we found the top of the rise and looked further up. Then we discovered something very important. The glacier we had been walking on top of was not the Grand Pacific Glacier. It was the Ferris Glacier! In this case, the Ferris comes down from the side and runs into the Grand Pacific, and is a tributary to it. But looking up in the distance we could see there was a gap in the ice, and the grand pacific no longer connected. How can you have a tributary if the main flow doesn't connect anymore?
So that was the biggest revelation of the trip for us. We jumped for joy.
On our way back we came across a stream that flowed under the glacier, and it is amazing to watch it just go in and down, making a cave or a tunnel.
That night we made a nice little fire and roasted things in triumph. Truth be told, it was a long day of hiking and we were tired.
The next day we decided to spend aboard the canoe and investigating the Margerie glacier, so off we set.
There is a little island that just formed this year and is right in front of the glacier, and we went ashore to look, but it was a very dangerous spot because any ice calving would send a big wave over the island, so we quickly ran away.
But we spent most of the day in the sunshine sitting in the boat and watching ice fall off into the water. The glacier was very active, probably because of the big rainfall a few days before.
I climbed up the cliff on the south side of the glacier and got a picture overlooking the face. it is about 200 ft tall.
That night was a beautiful sunset and here's another picture of the camp site with the Ferris Glacier behind us.
And we had another fire so we could eat up all the corn and sausages we had brought.
The next day we devoted to the other side of the valley. We paddled across the face of the Ferris Glacier, which is not very impressive, just a big pile of dirt, and then walked around on the outflow plain of the river that comes from between the ferris and grand pacific glaciers, so its a decently large river. It was sunny again, so we took a nap with the beautiful Margerie and valleys behind us.
That night the glacier calved a huge amount and we had to fight our way through the ice to get out and work our way down Tarr Inlet. We made camp on Russel Island, which is where John Muir camped in 1879 when the glacier was further forward, but not on the same spot. We also found an old Oystercatcher nest with an egg in it still. The egg was bad, but neat to see.
The inside of Russel Island is called Russel Cut, and it is a spot where usually there are animals, so we went over to look. We found a bear, and nice views. Its a spot I had camped at in 2009 with Danny on Altair and so we were happy to go back to look again.
Then the next day we went to Lamplugh Glacier and camped right in front of the face. Its my favorite glacier in the bay because you can walk around right in front of it. I got to explore a bit more than I usually do when I am working.
And we hiked up the ridge to get a better look.
And a better look still...
Then we caught a ride with the WND back down to Bartlett Cove and I met a man who was carving a totem pole and watched that for a bit. It was really neat watching him work.
I did a few kite shots for higher elevation stuff. This is overlooking the Margerie Glacier from above
A nd here is looking at our camp site
and closer..
This one is looking to the north at where the Grand Pacific glacier terminates
Here is a higher view above Marge
And Marge again
Marge from another angle.
And Lamplugh from the ridge
And looking up the valley at lamplugh
So the trip was a success. I am leaving the canoe there for the winter and hopefully will do another trip next year. Its challenging to canoe around, but the rewards are very good, and I think its the best way to spend a lot of time at a tidewater glacier because you don't have to worry about your boat getting hit by ice.
I've got a few more weeks up here before I go back down to Mexico for the winter, but this summer has been very good.
