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| Tracy Arm |
[Sept. 2, 2013]
Glacier Day! Today we motored up
Tracy Arm, a narrow fjord more than 30 miles long, one-fifth of which is covered with ice. It's part of the fabulously named
Tracy Arm-Ford's Terror Wilderness, and lies about 45 miles south of Juneau. (Fun fact: the capital of Alaska is not accessible by road.)
The plan was to see the South Sawyer Glacier, then kayak partway back down the fjord.
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| Glacier-scarred walls |
The first indication we were headed for glacier territory was the chunky, floating ice known as "bergy bits." Some were small enough to fit in your hand (or ice bucket) and some were monsters the size of three-story buildings, complete with embedded rocks. As we all know, only the top 10 percent of floating ice is visible. The captain steered carefully.
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| Meltwater with bergy bit |
Next we noted that the rock walls show signs of massive scarring.
Then the sea changed color from the flow of glacial meltwater, full of "rock flour," or ground granite, which when suspended in water scatters the sunlight and turns it a milky turquoise. It's beautiful.
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| Narrow passage |
A sharp-eyed passenger (not me) spotted a mountain goat high up a ridiculously steep slope. We passed plunging waterfalls, and the fjord is so steep that the captain could bring the boat right up to the rockface so that we were in the spray.
We passed a hanging glacier - one that doesn't meet the water - on the right, and another on the left. The canyon walls began to close in.
[To be continued]
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