Glacier Bay National Park & Bartlett Cove
Early this morning the National Geographic Sea Lion docked in Glacier Bay National Park at Bartlett Cove where we picked up our Park Ranger Naturalist, Marylou Blakeslee, who would accompany us during our voyage into Glacier Bay. Sea otters and humpback whales greeted us as we began cruising up the bay.
We arrived at South Marble Island just after breakfast, where we had good opportunities to view a plethora of sea birds and several groups of raucous Steller (northern) sea lions. The Marble Islands are smooth resistant marble knolls (called roche moutonnees) that have been carved by glaciers and create cliffs that make superb nesting sites for sea birds, including tufted puffins and glaucous-winged gulls. Other types of birds seen perched and/or flying were bald eagles (which caused quite a stir in the nesting colony when they flew by), black oystercatchers, pigeon guillemots, common murres, pelagic cormorants, and black-legged kittiwakes. We also observed large groups of Steller sea lions on the rocks, including one that had numbers on its side, which indicated that it was being tracked by scientists.
We continued traveling up the west arm of Glacier Bay, retracing the retreating path of glaciers 200 years ago when they came all the way down to Glacier Bay's entrance. Since that time, the glaciers have retreated about 60 miles and the banks of the bay are newly vegetated. We entered Tidal Inlet and admired the scenery there. It is near the entrance to Tidal Inlet that the water is at its deepest in Glacier Bay: it reaches a maximum depth of 1,416 feet below sea level. Then, near Gloomy Knob, we spotted several groups of mountain goats on grassy knolls. We continued up along the west arm, passing to the east of Russell Island, where we observed a brown bear that was meandering along an outwash fan, getting wet as it crossed streams.
After lunch, we had progressed toward the upper end of Tarr Inlet, and we passed very close to the faces of the Grand Pacific and Margerie Glaciers, both of which are tidewater glaciers. The "dirty" (debris-covered) Grand Pacific Glacier barely looked like a glacier because of its thick coating of rock debris. The "clean" (lacking rock debris) Marjorie Glacier has an impressive steep, blue face that is a mile wide and 250 feet tall, dwarfing the National Geographic Sea Lion. Here we heard lots of cracking and groaning as the ice relentlessly pushed forward and we even observed a few small calving events.
On the way back out of the bay, we passed Lamplugh Glacier, which has retreated so much that it is no longer a tidewater glacier. Meanwhile, our friendly shipboard geologist, Al Trujillo, gave an illustrated talk about glaciation and glacial features. Our videographer, Jeff Litton, followed with a TED presentation showing time-lapse photography of various glaciers around the world.
The many hours that it took to get back to Bartlett Cove gave us a feeling for the immense scale of how far the glaciers had retreated in the last 200 years. We docked there after re-cap and dinner, and we had an opportunity to walk the trail along an area that is experiencing isostatic rebound after the removal of a thick layer of glacial ice. It was interesting to experience a lush temperate rainforest here in this recently de-glaciated land, giving us a feel for how quickly plant succession proceeds. Kettle lakes were also seen, having been created by a large chunk of ice falling onto loose glacial debris. Many of us viewed the visitor center and lodge before returning to the ship.
It is easy to stay up late when it doesn't get dark until after 11:00 and beautiful sunsets last for at least an hour. What a wondrous land!
