Tracy Arm Fjord
Today the diverse spectrum of Southeast Alaska's colors presented themselves to us. We started with sapphire patches of sky peeking between high gray clouds. We entered Tracy Arm Fjord and found a young, thick green forest. Sitka spruce, Sitka willow, Sitka alder, and a multitude of berry bushes were re-colonizing their former territories. We paused quietly to view black, in the form of a bear, feeding casually along the intertidal area. He slowly climbed into the shrubbery and we followed his movements by watching the quivering trees. He was eating berries, most likely sweet orange-colored salmon berries. High on the hillsides, above almost all plant growth were seven spots of white. These spots had legs and moved about the steep cliff edges easily, as they were mountain goats. Closer to the glaciers, we lost our green botanical exuberance and found slate-gray bare rock.
The cliffs were scoured and scarred by the past advances of Sawyer and South Sawyer glaciers. At the end of the fjord, we found the most incredible blue. Wrapped in our own colorful kaleidoscope of jackets, hats, mittens and scarves, we practiced our glacial patience and were rewarded as the glacier calved off large chunks of its face into the water. We rode the wave created by the calving ice in a bathtub turned a murky turquoise-green by the glacier's meltwater rivers. In the afternoon we added a vibrant splash of color to the landscape as the Sea Lion spawned purple, red, yellow, orange and blue kayaks and we explored Williams Cove at water level. We ended our day on the bow of the Sea Lion, surrounded by humpback whales throwing their flukes high in the air and showing us the black and white undersides, each pattern an individual "fingerprint."
The colors of the day, the colors of Southeast Alaska, the spectrum is eclectic and beautiful.
Today the diverse spectrum of Southeast Alaska's colors presented themselves to us. We started with sapphire patches of sky peeking between high gray clouds. We entered Tracy Arm Fjord and found a young, thick green forest. Sitka spruce, Sitka willow, Sitka alder, and a multitude of berry bushes were re-colonizing their former territories. We paused quietly to view black, in the form of a bear, feeding casually along the intertidal area. He slowly climbed into the shrubbery and we followed his movements by watching the quivering trees. He was eating berries, most likely sweet orange-colored salmon berries. High on the hillsides, above almost all plant growth were seven spots of white. These spots had legs and moved about the steep cliff edges easily, as they were mountain goats. Closer to the glaciers, we lost our green botanical exuberance and found slate-gray bare rock.
The cliffs were scoured and scarred by the past advances of Sawyer and South Sawyer glaciers. At the end of the fjord, we found the most incredible blue. Wrapped in our own colorful kaleidoscope of jackets, hats, mittens and scarves, we practiced our glacial patience and were rewarded as the glacier calved off large chunks of its face into the water. We rode the wave created by the calving ice in a bathtub turned a murky turquoise-green by the glacier's meltwater rivers. In the afternoon we added a vibrant splash of color to the landscape as the Sea Lion spawned purple, red, yellow, orange and blue kayaks and we explored Williams Cove at water level. We ended our day on the bow of the Sea Lion, surrounded by humpback whales throwing their flukes high in the air and showing us the black and white undersides, each pattern an individual "fingerprint."
The colors of the day, the colors of Southeast Alaska, the spectrum is eclectic and beautiful.
