In steep fiords, rain equals waterfalls. How fortunate for us! Today we’ve passed perhaps a hundred thousand-foot cascades of tumbling water: water sheeting over rock faces, ephemeral transparent veils of tiny droplets, and scalloped layers streaming down the mountainside. Water defines the temperate rainforest (and Southeast Alaska)--both the warm salty Pacific Ocean currents and the cloud condensation we are moving through today.
Water in its solid glacial form entranced us this morning. At the head of Tracy Arm Fiord we glimpsed the South Sawyer Glacier off in the mist and wound our way through icy bits to the nearby Sawyer Glacier. From our sturdy inflatable boats, we observed close-up the craggy icy blue reaches winding around the sculpted mountains and, up in the distance, Stikine Ice Field. These are the southernmost tidewater glaciers in North America and are thinning and receding at a rapid rate.
High on a rock outcropping, a tiny orange tent morphed into two yellow kayaks with two agile wilderness rangers paddling up to the National Geographic Sea Lion. Shawn and Mike shared their passion for this wild place and the need to protect wild places “untrammeled by man” in all of the places we live.
Late in the afternoon, back out in Stephens Passage, we rushed out on deck to watch a humpback whale and her rambunctious calf. As we maneuvered near the whales, the calf began to breach completely out of the water at regular intervals. Wow! What an over-the-top cap to an amazing week of wildlife and wilderness!
