As far as first days go in Southeast Alaska, this one was hard to beat! We awoke to a beautiful sunny day amidst the glacial fjords of Endicott Arm. As we headed further up towards the glacier, the granite walls became steeper and closer, rippled with the carvings of thousands of years of a river of ice. Just after breakfast, we reached the nearly half-mile wide face of Dawes Glacier. At a distance she is impressive, reaching back over 10 miles into the blanket of the Stikene Ice Field from which she is fed. We deployed the inflatable DIB boats for a closer look at the nearly 200-foot tall glacier face. As a fairly active glacier, she gave us beautiful display! As we approached, “shooters” emerged from the water in front of the glacier. Rocketing up from hundreds of feet of water below the glacier face, these bright blue chunks of compressed ice also carried dirt and boulders from the rocky bottom of the fjord. A display like this is rare and carried on for over five minutes, as pillars of the glacier face also fell into the water. For the first morning, everyone was receiving quite a treat!
After a delicious lunch and a brief lecture on some basic photography skills, we dropped anchor in Williams Cove, along the entrance to Tracy Arm. Guests were able to set foot in the forests for interpretive walks, in search of bear prints and muskegs (Alaskan bogs). Other guests preferred to stay near the water in kayaks, where they could explore the rocky forest seashore inaccessible by foot and even circumnavigate small ice bergs grounded by the tide.
Following a cocktail hour of wine tasting and a delicious dinner, we were greeted by humpback whales in Stephens Passage. They were a perfect complement to the everlasting Alaska sunset as we head on to what is sure to be another extraordinary day.
