Glacier Bay National Park - Gustavus, AK

Monday, July 28th Plane, Taxi, Plane, School Bus

Monday was a big travel day.  We got up and hit the Alaska SeaPlane terminal.  I thought it was an actual sea plane, but in fact it is an independent airplane company that travels all over Alaska to major cities as well as very remote cities.  We jumped into an 8 passenger plane and headed back to Juneau.  If you didn’t know – I hate to fly, but I kept it together and it was an amazing flight. 

We got back to Juneau, taxied to the hotel, repacked and taxied back to the airport.  We then boarded the shortest flight in the commercial airlines industry to Gustavus.  It is a 14-15 minute flight.  It takes way longer to board and deplane than to actually fly.  We then loaded up on the NPS green bus and headed to the Glacier Bay National Park Lodge. 

It was fantastic.  Our room was in a very cool building with a view of Bartlett Cove.  There is only one dinning room for the entire lodge which has 56 rooms.  We had a nice dinner and hit the hay as we were exhausted.

Tuesday, July 29th – Day Tour of Glacier Bay National Park

Glacier Bay National Park (GBNP) is one of the remotest national parks in the United States.  You can only get here by boat or plane.  Only 25 small personal water crafts are allowed to go deep into the fjords and one commercial craft (National Park Boat) is allowed to go into the fjords as well.  The cruise ships are allowed to go in, but not way back in and only 2 a day. We boarded our boat at 6:40 and began our trek up the fjord to Johns Hopkins Glacier.  GBNP has 1045 glaciers and we probably only saw 20 of them.

We were continually surrounded by magnificent snow and glacier covered mountains and two islands of sea lions.

The next stop was South Marble Island.  The island actually has marble on it.  We saw tons of puffins and lots of other birds - but we focused on the puffins.

There are two types of Puffins - a Tuffted Puffin and a Horned Puffin - these are all Tuffted.

We then headed out to the fjord and were greeted by a two or three different humpback whales in the fjord. We mainly got tail pictures and this one is pretty cool as the background is amazing.

Our next stop was Gloomy Knob where we got to see two mountain goats. We were relatively close to them compared to the ones in Carcross.

The goat in the upper right was just hanging out. The bottom picture is where the goat was on the cliff (far left on the edge - just. A little white dot) and then a picture of him zoomed and cropped close!

After seeing Gloomy Point we headed off to the glacier and were greeted by a pod of 7-9 Orcas. They were spread out all over the fjord so we didn’t get many pictures, but there was one big one with about a 6’ dorsal fin. It is crazy how big they are.

As we headed up the fjord we saw some amazing glaciers and waterfalls and several otters just floating around.

Off to John’s Hopkins Glacier.  This glacier was named by Harry Reid after his alma mader.  He also named a glacier after himself J  The glacier was massive and is actually growing and moving forward, but thinning.  We actually got to see the glacier calve and then about 3 seconds later heard the bomb of it – so awesome!

The pictures below are more of the glacier. The top right is a picture of a cave that was in the glacier. The bottom right is the same spot, but the whole right side calved when we were there and covered up the glacier. This park is constantly changing.

One interesting thing we learned is that the Harbor Seals are a indicator of climate change.  In 1995 there were over 6000 seals in GBNP and now there are only 2000.  They live on the ice bergs because it is very safe for them because the Orca’s don’t like the glacial runoff.  They also can get off and stay on the icebergs.  An iceberg by definition is the size of a football field above the surface.  A Bitty Berg is the size of a basketball court and a growler is the size of a tennis court or smaller.  There are no icebergs anymore in GBNP, and very few Bitty Bergs.  We saw several seals on the Bitty Bergs.  Researchers are conducting research on the inability to get on the icebergs and bitty bergs are impacting the GBNP seal population.

We got off the boat at about 3:45 and headed over to the Tlinglet Hertiage Center.  This is a Nation house that houses four clans.  This is where they have celebrations and ceremonies for the Tlinglet nations and the four clans.  The Tlinglets and the GBNP had a very contentious relationship and GBNP is the only park in the system that recognizes and acknowledges and promotes the indingenous people who lived in this park.  The story is amazing and very moving.  If you would like to read more click here.  https://www.nps.gov/glba/learn/historyculture/glacier-bay-as-homeland.htm

They originally wanted to build four clan houses for each clan, but there was not enough money to do that so they decided on one building.  The GBNP units each took money out of their own budgets so that the building could be built.  It was built by the Tlinglet and the NPS employees.  It is very moving to listen to the stories and the videos. The man carving the totems on the left has been carving for 35 years and is carving two new totems for the enterance to the park to celebrate the parks 100th anniversary.

Totems always tell a story and below is the story of the totem poles in front of the hall. The other four totems are inside the hall and are representative of the four clans of the Tlinglet in the area and a ceremonial paddle that was used during the opening celebration.

Wednesday, July 30th – Sea Kayaking, Whales, Drifting out to Sea, Hiking & Fishing

Today was a BUSY day!  By the time 6:30 pm hit we could hardly move, but it was well worth it. 

We began with a Sea Kayak guided tour around Bartlett Sound.  Our guide was Sarah and we were joined by Toby from Seattle.  We got all suited up and went on our way.  We paddled for about 20 minutes and Mike yells “There she blows” and sure enough there was a hump back whale in the cove.  At one time she/he was within 100 feet of us.  We are supposed to stay a ¼ mile away from them, but if they pop up in front of you there is not much you can do.  She/He stayed with us for our entire journey.  At some points the whale got so close we had to pound our canoes to let her/him know where we were at.  They can hardly see, but they can hear and they don’t have sonar.  So it is so interesting.  The bay is full of herring and krill and all sorts of yummy things for the whale.  We also saw a seal and several otters.  We don’t have many pics as we were all suited up in weatherproof gear.

Our crew of four were pretty good paddler so we headed out into the fjord.  The tide was going our and the wind was at our backs so we scooted down the coast.  When it is time to return, the rain had started, the wind picked up and the tide was against us.  We started to laugh because if we stopped paddling we would go backwards.  If we sort of paddled we just stayed still – so we kicked in our canoe expertise from the boundary waters and hauled it out of the fjord.  Sarah was very impressed with our paddling prowess J  We laughed so hard and how hard we were working and Mike was trying to use the rudder – it was a Sh*t Show!!!!

We then decided we were going to try and go fishing as the Salmon were jumping like crazy in the bay so off we went on a 5 mile round trip hike.  I hauled the backpack and Mike hauled the backpack suitcase full of waders and wading boots and the rods.  We got there (no bear – thank God above, as we were both nervous about that).  Mike started fishing and gave it the old college try!  The river was so cool – the tide was coming in and the current was going out, but the water was rising.  In 40 minutes it went from half way up his chins to just below his belly button.  No fish and we headed back and no bear!

The borers on these trees were awesome. Some people in Alaska pick these then do painings on them.

It was a fabulous day, but we were exhausted and so sore!

Thursday, July 31st   Hiking, Busses and Ferries

Today we check out of GBNP at noon.  We took a nice hike down to the campground and the dock.  We took a couple of pics of our room because it was amazing. This is the first time we ever stayed anywhere where we were truly unplugged and it was great! We both said this was our favorite place we stayed.

We then grabbed the bus to the Alaska Marine Ferry to Juneau.  The bus dropped us off at the dock and there was nothing there except a couple of benches.  No office, no shelter, nothing but some hiking trails.  We went down the trail and found some wild strawberries.  Mike had never had them and I forgot how great they are.  We shared our bounty (8 berries :)) with fellow travelers and boarded the MV LeConte.

We then loaded on the ferry and headed to Juneau.  We made the flight in 15 minutes and the ferry takes 6 hours J  The ride was well worth it.  We saw some amazing views and a lot of Dahl Porpoise’s and a couple of whales.  We also got to stop at Hoonah – the town where the Tlinglet people moved to when the glacier took out their village. The ferry was late as we were supposed to get in at 9:15 pm and got in at 11:30 pm. We headed to the hotel and went to bed!

G;achier Bay.= We Loved You!

It was a great relaxing day.