Adventures in Alaska: Glacier Bay National Park

30 July – Anchorage to Glacier Bay

A mostly travel day today – we’re flying out of Anchorage to Juneau, then on to Gustavus, to spend a day in Glacier Bay National Park.

Flying over, we had a clear beautiful day and a great view of the landscape below us. We took several videos, and afterwards realized we were looking at Glacier Bay National Park and the waterways and glaciers that we’d be visiting. Seeing it from up above gave a much clearer picture of how the glacier system worked, and the ‘rivers’ of ice were easily traced back to the enormous ice field that was feeding it.

Because we had a few hour layover in Juneau, we decided to Uber downtown (about a 10 minute ride) for lunch. There’s a harbor where all the gigantic cruise ships dock – the town has about 35,000 residents, and each one of the ships hold around 6-7,000 passengers. When we were there, 6 ships were docked...!

Also at the harbor are many sea plane companies. We had lunch at a dockside restaurant, and every so often the loud whirl of the propellers would drone in or out, stopping conversation. It was a gorgeous day – around 74° and sunny – which was wonderful for us, but terrible for the environment.

The ride to Gustavus, the jumping off point for Glacier Bay, is 12 minutes long. Probably the fastest plane ride I’ve ever been on. But it just goes to show how remote some of these places are – there are no roads to get there, so the only ways to get around are by plane or boat. That’s why there are more bush pilots per capita in Alaska than anywhere else in the world.

Gustavus is about a 15 minute bus ride from Glacier Bay National Park, where we’re staying for one night. We checked in around 6pm, which gave us enough time to go on a short hike before dinner. We took our junior ranger books out on the Forest Trail, and found a lovely little lagoon in the middle of the rainforest where we worked on our books. There’s a thick layer of moss covering everything, and we found tons of different lichens, fungi, mosses, berries, and other vegetation. The trees grow right up to the short beach, so it’s an interesting coastal ecosystem unlike the ones I’ve seen before.

We have to be up early for breakfast tomorrow, so it’s off to bed for us!

31 July – Glacier Bay to Juneau

Woke up early this morning and took a boat ride through Glacier Bay. This National Park is interesting because the entire bay was created only 300 years ago. During the Little Ice Age in the 1700s, the area filled with ice, covering the native Tlingit Village that existed here before it was a bay. As the ice field retreated, it carved out the valleys that were then filled in with seawater, leaving a 1300 ft deep bay with several smaller glaciers still existing and reshaping the environment.

We sailed out of Bartlett Cove and up around the Beardslee Islands up Sitakaday Narrows. In the distance, we spotted several humpback whales, including one that breached. There were so many that we didn’t even stop to observe them. Up by South Marbel Island, we slowed to see the nesting sea birds – including cormorants, pigeon guillemots, kittiwakes, glaucus gulls, and tuffed puffins.

By Tlingit Point, we sailed past Sebree Island – which actually is no longer an island. Because Glacier Bay was formed so recently, the ground underneath is still very active – the retreating glacier is taking pressure off the land, so the entire area is slowly rising as the weight is taken off.

We took a brief detour up Bear Inlet to look for wildlife on the shore – animals come down to the beach to find mussels and other tidal creatures – and saw a mother brown bear and her cub foraging in the brush. Soon after, up along the cliffs, we spotted several mountain goats (some with their kids), high up on the steep slopes. 

Then we sailed up Glacier Bay to Johns Hopkins Glacier, passing Reid Glacier and Lamplugh Glacier along the way. There were several bergy bits and small ice floes in the inlet, and the closer we got to the glacier the more harbor seals we saw hauled out on the ice. 

Harbor seals rely on sea ice to have their pups; with the loss of sea ice, fewer harbor seals are able to find a safe place to rest. In addition, kayakers and tourist  boats sometime startle the seals who then escape off the ice, and if it happens too often they will abandon their pups to get away.

We idled for about 20 minutes in front of Johns Hopkins Glacier, watching it calve. The katabatic winds coming off the top of the glacier sent a constant cold breeze over us, also creating swells in the water. We could hear the rumbling and thundering inside the glacier, and five or six times a hunk of snow and ice would crumble and splash into the sea. The massive expanse of wall made it hard to tell how big each calving event was, but still an enormous amount of ice was falling each time.

We had just enough time after the cruise to get to the Gustavus flight back to Juneau, where we went downtown for a crab feast at Tracy’s Crab Shack. Tasty!

1 August – Anchorage

Awesome day today, hiking Mendenhall Glacier. Guide Daniel picked us up at 7:30 and we headed straight to the trailhead. We each had a backpack with our helmets, harnesses, walking stick, and crampons (and most importantly, snacks!) and went out the 4 miles to the base of the glacier. The trail went first through Sitka Spruce and hemlocks in the Tongass National Forest, then started getting rougher through brush and up rock scrambles.

It was disturbing to see the year markers for where the edge of the glacier used to be – halfway through the hike we reached the 1946 marker, and as we grew closer the signs began popping up closer and closer together. At this rate, the glacier will be inaccessible in only a few short years; even now, they are discussing plans to move the Forest Service visitor center (the most-visited tourist site in Juneau) and potentially closing the trail.

We were lucky enough to get there earlier than most other groups, so we went down to the side of the glacier and found an ice cave. The colors were mesmerizing – the deeper the blue, the more hard-packed and therefore stronger the ice. Down below, the dirt and gravel had turned the ice into a grey-black, so it looked more like rock than ice. Melting ice water continuously drained from the sides, not quite a waterfall but definitely disconcerting on such a warm day – as Daniel explained, just the week before that ice cave hadn’t been there, and in a week or so, it would be totally gone.

Daniel went first to scope out the security and strength of the ice, then set up climbing anchors and ropes while we put on our harnesses, helmets, and crampons. In turn, we each strapped in and scrambled up the icy slope into the cave. There were so many different features and crevices found in the ice –it looked almost as though we were looking underwater. It was also interesting to see the distinct layers and types of ice, the holes and cracks, and to feel the smooth, glassy surface of the clear blue ceiling.

See the people behind me?? Goes to show how BIG the glacier is!

From there, we went around to the front and climbed up to the surface of Mendenhall. We had to carefully stay in a single-file line and follow the path that Daniel was taking, in order to avoid the crevasses (cracks) and moulins (shafts) that might be under the surface. And nearing the gaping maws was exhilarating and a bit frightening – the vibrant blues and whites were mesmerizing, and it was hard to gauge the depths of the pits. More than once I felt the ‘call of the void’!

It was definitely a weird warping of scale being up on the glacier - each of the crevasses that we looked in stretch down 100 feet or more, yet don't look it when you look down. Daniel stood near the edge and dug his crampons in, and when we wanted a peek he'd grab on to our harnesses - just in case.

We also wanted to hike further up the glacier, but after calling on the radio to the group that was up ahead, it was a definite 'no go' - the ice wasn't very stable and the route was difficult to traverse.

I felt really fortunate to get such an up close and personal visit with a glacier. The entire time we were there, a constant stream of melting water could be heard from all around - even with the katabatic winds, it wasn't very cold and many of the formations that we were admiring weren't there the week before. There's a big discussion about how much longer Mendenhall will be accessible to visitors, since it's melting at such a rapid rate that soon we won't be able to reach it. It's melting fast - and given how warm and relatively nice the weather was the entire time we were in Alaska, it's only going to get worse.