Glacier Close Up

The glaciers are shrinking, melting, retreating...that is clear.  They are still pretty big when you look at it from the perspective of a random human clinging to a rock that's spinning through space at a speed of 1000 mph.  But if you're the planet, they're getting pretty small.  Here is one beautiful example of what we stand to lose in the coming decades.

Here is another one.  The glacier is big, but those bare rocks in between the base and the top remind us that we would have taken a very different picture here just a decade ago.

That's right, a decade ago.  The tour boat driver, who was younger than I, said that when he started doing this, the boat couldn't get this close because the ice extended  beyond the edge of the mountain and into the sea.  The gray silt seen in the right of this picture is the glacial deposit.  10 years ago, this whole slope and several miles of the sea were all ice in the summer.

All that area...was glacier just 10 years ago.  Don't tell people in Alaska the world isn't changing.  It's changing before their eyes.

Glacier ice is an intense teal blue.  This is because glacial ice is actually compressed by the massive weight of the glacier itself density change causes a change in the refraction of light.  Blue light is scattered more.

Glacier are not just snow.  Because they move, there can be dirt, silt, and rocks mixed in the lower levels.

Here's a cross section of the glacier on zoom.

When the glacier calves (that's when pieces fall into the water), car or house size pieces are falling into the water.  How often does this happen?  Several times an hour it seems.  The tour operators know they can bring people out here and put the engine to idle and will be almost guaranteed a calving event in the 15-20 minutes they are here.

In addition to the calving, there is the melting.  Streams flow out of the glaciers constantly.

This looks to me more like a scene from Lord of the Rings and filmed in New Zealand.  Alaska has its green mountains as well.

One of my favorite spots in Canada, it the area by the Angel Glacier, on Mount Edith Cavell, in Jasper National Park.  The Angel Glacier is very small compared to this one.  But there is something otherworldly about the glaciers.  Perhaps its just they are one of the few things left on that are a bit mysterious to us still.  Sure the science is there, but unlike Caribbean beaches, less people come and see these natural beauties.  That's probably a good thing for the glaciers.  Or any ecosystem actually.

I like how there are so many unique shapes within the ice.

These spires reminded me of hoodoos in the badlands of the Midwest.

And this one I can't quite place but somewhere in the depths of my brain I am thinking it's a scene from an early 80's movie...maybe Labyrinth with David Bowie?  I am not sure.  It's very ice castle like.

The contrast of the landscape was very striking.  Ocean.  Glacier.  Greenery.  Ancient Rock.  Snow.  Pretty cool to see it all in one frame.

We got to stay long enough to see a calving, and take it all in.  It seems a type of reverence is due...how many more generations will see these masses of ice and the animals that thrive near them? It's a little sad to think of...but....

...we were happy to be able to see it for ourselves!  I hope to go back a few more times too!

Otters Away!

I have to admit, I saw more sea otters than I expected to see on the Klondike Express.  They  would pop up like tiny little puffballs, floating along in pairs or groups in the colder waters, out quite literally in the middle of nowhere.  A group of otters is called a raft.  We were lucky enough to happen across a raft of otters.  They were however, basking in the direct sun and so getting a great picture was a bit of a challenge...their cuteness was forever in their own little shadow.

This first little guy is doing ocean calisthetics.  Touching his little toes...maybe a few crunchies making sure he is fluffy but not fat.

He (or she,can't say I can tell who is who yet) stopped to give a curious glance our way.

Once he (or she) was satisfied we weren't coming any closer and didn't look like an Orca or anything else predatory, they stretched out and displayed a miiiighty big foot.  I always thought Bigfoot was a sasquatch...now I think it might just have been a sea otter who wandered onto land.

Otters seem to be quite friendly.  This little sweetie actually waved at us!

A few weren't very interested in us...they were having much more fun playing otter snuggles and weren't about to let us interrupt.

I said I couldn't tell if they were girls or boys...but the guy on the left definitely has to be a guy.  He's like Gandalph of the sea otters.

Doesn't get much sweeter than this!

A little grooming going on.

Otters look like they are the best huggers in the animal kingdom.

Even when they look a bit embarrassed to have been caught in the act.

Unfortunately, that's all I have for today.  I'm otter here...I mean outta here.  Lame.  I know.  I'm a lazy blogger :)

Sea Otter Sighting

So there we were, cruising along through Prince William Sound.  You might wonder why American waters bear the name of Britain's most popular royal.  Coincidence it turns out.  It was actually named the Sandwich Sound by James Cook when he sailed through here in 1778 (named for the explorations founder, the Earl of Sandwich, the future King William IV of England).  The editor so the map later renamed it after the Earl's son, Prince William.

In more recent history, you might associate Prince William Sound with another event.  In 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez left the port of Valdez, Alaska and hit the Bligh reef in the sound, spilling about 750,000 barrells of oil into the sea here.  The spill killed hundreds of thousands of birds and mammals, including killer whales, bald eagles, and sea otters.  I remember watching the news a a teenager in the middle of landlocked Saskatchewan, and being horrified.  I swore that if something like this ever happened again when I was "grown up" I would find a way to help.  That led to the little incident described in Men Who Won't Wash Ducks" (apparently one of my best stories ever), and 26 years after the Exxon Valdez...here I was in Prince William Sound.

And it is stunning.  I imagine what it must have been like for Captain Cook, under the flapping of sails rather than the roar of an engine.

The captain told us that waters are known for their sea otters.  In fact, the sea otters like the water fairly brisk, so we could expect to see them closer to the glaciers.  What they didn't mention, was that Sea Otters are still an endangered species, and their numbers are currently decreasing.  Alaska is one of the strongholds in the sea otter's range, so if you are lucky enough to see them, don't be fooled into thinking they are a thriving population.  There are only about 100,000 left in the entire world -- when you think of the length of coastline along Russia and North America, you realize how few that really is.

And so I felt incredibly lucky when the ship slowed and we saw a little blob floating in its water.  A sea otter!  Floating characteristically on its back, it's little feet in the air.  It was adorable!!  Now, I learned when I got home that I have not mastered the art of photography enough that I can stand on a bobbing boat on the ocean and take a picture of an object bobbing in the water at a different rate 50 feet away and get a clear shot.  So these are my somewhat blurry otter pictures.

What I learned, is that where you think you see one otter, you are almost always seeing at least two otters.  Every time, they would be hanging out together, cuddled up or playing otter footsie.

Sea Otters are quite fascinating to me.  These small little fluffballs that float in the frigid northern waters have no blubber, like seals or whales...they rely on ridiculously thick soft fur to keep them warm.  That is what got them initially hunted to the brink of extinction.  Not one of the finer moments of humanity.  Underneath that soft fur, they are densely muscled littler critters.  Those tiny little otters weigh at least 30 pounds each...some upwards of 100 pounds!  It's little nose and ears can close when it dives for mussels and shellfish...and move over apes, sea otters have been using tools forever.  They will get a rock, a mussel or clam, float on their back with the rock on their belly, and bash the shell into the rock until they can get dinner out of the shell.  But more about that amazing fur.  Keeping body heat is possible by keeping their fur impeccably clean...they are constantly grooming, and squeezing water out of the fur and blowing air into it to make it fuffier and drier.  In fact, moms will groom and puff the baby otters up so much that the little fellas just float from all the air in their fur.  Basically, sea otters are awesome.

Far too soon, we were back on our way to the glaciers, watching these little heads and flippers bob away into the distance.

I longed to be on Captain Cook's ship...there would have been so much more wildlife...and we would have passed through it so much slower.  But...26 glaciers awaited us.  And they too had stories to tell.

These glaciers are mostly Tidewater Glaciers.  This just means they flow all the way to the ocean.  They "calve" or break off into the ocean, creating icebergs.  Many of Alaska's tidewater glaciers have receded...they no longer reach the ocean.  A generation ago, they did.  2 generations ago, the areas we cruised through were also ice.  The glaciers are in a clear retreat.  Gazing at the black and white photos displayed on the screens of the same glaciers in the days of black and white was sobering.  We were scheduled to see a glacier that IS still a tidewater glacier.  But we will save those pictures for another day.

26 Glacier Cruise

The point of our trip to Whittier was to hop on board a glacier cruise.  I had previously done a Kenai Fjords tour out of Seward, so the 26 Glacier Cruise was the selection for the day.  If you spend more than a few days in Alaska and have a radio on at any point, the 26 Glacier Cruise jingle will be forever in your head, so I also went just to satisfy the curiosity from being bombarded by that ad.

I wasn't sure if we would see a lot of animals.  I was ready for scenic shooting, and this was going to be a great way to see a few mountains from a new angle.  We pulled out of Whittier on a nice and sunny day, but you always need a jacket when glacier touring...cool winds on those waters.

Over the course of the afternoon, we would indeed see 26 glaciers.  Probably more.  After a while you sort of start to lose track.  There are still a lot of glaciers in Alaska.  But they are indeed a fraction of the size they were a generation ago.

These little islands are pretty much people free, unless someone makes a specific effort to take a boat out to them, and it makes me happy to know there are a few spots of land on this planet that people haven't mucked up yet.  Some peaceful shorelines for seals to rest, for bears to nap in (they can swim there), and eagles can nest.  Alaska still has some great wilderness.

It was a nice calm day on the water, barely a ripple in sight.

I got Shibby to pose with the life preserver so we would remember the name of our boat -- The Klondike Express.  We spent most of the 6 hour tour on deck, with a few intermittent trips inside to warm up or grab coffee.  There is a chair at a table for every passenger, but we wanted to be right out where we could see an animal if it presented itself.

Well, it didn't take long!  We happened across a patch of sunbathing sea lions within the first half hour of the cruise.  Sea lions are noisy!  You can hear them barking, and they are always in the company of seagulls.  The sea lions kind of blend in.  But if you see a rock littered with seagulls, look carefully, and you start to pick out sea lions

So there were a lot of mountains, several salt water spashes on the lenses (hence black spots), but for a long stretch we didn't see any more animals.

They promised we would see sea otters soon, particularly as we got to the colder waters in Prince William Sound.  And so we waited and watched the pretty scenery go by.

 Alaska...sure is beautiful.  But where are my cute and fuzzy animals?  Well, good things come to those who wait.  Stay tuned!