Tracy Arm/Fords Terror Wilderness
The backdrop was sapphire-blue skies, the foreground, glacial-scoured walls and the objects of our attention and admiration were the fluffy white specs of mountain goats scampering about or basking in the warmth of this morning’s sweet sunshine. The goats are using the inaccessibility of the cliffs to thwart predators less sure-of-foot.
Leaping without abandon from the cliffs were exuberant waterfalls; some splashed while others trickled as snowmelt fed or starved the smaller rivulets. Boarding our Zodiacs we approached South Sawyer Glacier. The fjord was thick with ice, crystalline sculptures floating and flowing with the whim and ways of the tide. While we bumped and plowed our way through the burgie bits and growlers to the glacier’s face, we found mountain goats, closer and subsequently larger than our previous fluffy dots. These goats had faces and horns and we anthropomorphized them into doing a little people watching as we puttered past and under their cliff.
The boom and echo of the glacier calving brought forth a flurry of questions – was that thunder? Yes, but a very different thunder, it is the “white thunder” produced by South Sawyer Glacier as it creaks, groans, complains and ultimately calves into the murky waters of Tracy Arm Fjord. We were warned it could be a petulant glacier, moody if you turned your back on it and would calve in a juvenile tantrum. We tested this theory as we returned to the National Geographic Sea Bird, keeping a keen eye during our retreat for a final fit of calving.
It is hard to believe in this stark and steep landscape that there could be large mammals wandering about, but it proved to be true as we traversed the fjord and found one, no wait there is another pair, oops around the bend is another, whoops that one went into the alder thicket, but there are another couple of black bears! For the afternoon we found a total of five black bears. The tide was out and it left exposed patches of barnacles. The bears have a meal at the ready as they scrape and then lick the barnacle soup they just whipped up, a veritable picnic at the beach.
The temperate rain forest in Williams Cove beckoned us for a visit, and we answered. Some paddled kayaks in the cove as winds dropped and a rainbow framed our ship. Others chose to use their rubber boots as their vehicle of exploration on terra firma. The enchantment of a verdant, moss covered refuge spun a spell on us. We emerged moisturized and appreciative for the existence of such a rare gem.
