Mon 7/7: Endicott Arm, Ford's Terror, Dawes Glacier
I woke up at 5:30 AM, and V woke up not long thereafter. I thought
I was just waking up early, though when people later mentioned having been
awakened by sounds of the ship weighing anchor at 5:30 in the morning. Maybe
the anchor sound had been what had awakened me and I just didn't realize it.
Anyway, being up early I shaved and then went to the 6:30 AM yoga session, one
of four early risers to do so. Is there a nicer setting for a yoga class than
the deck of a ship sailing up an Alaskan fjord towards a glacier? I think maybe
not. In addition to the setting, this was the only yoga class I've ever been in
that took a spontaneous break to check out harbor seals swimming by.
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| Yoga on Deck |
After yoga it was time for breakfast (omelette, pumpkin scones)
and then getting rain gear and boots for our expeditions. I chose to use their
rain pants because mine are old and yucky, but stuck with my own rain coat. I
gave myself a choice of boots: I borrowed a pair of theirs, plus I had my
neoprene kayak boots. Then it was into the skiffs to explore the Dawes glacier
up close and personal.
Our activity of the day was a great, if low exertion introduction
to the area. The ship had sailed deep into Endicott Arm and we loaded into
little inflatable motorized skiffs, about sixteen people per boat to go up
close to the the Dawes glacier, which sits at the head of Endicott Arm. We were
lucky to have Jackie Hedgepeth, the resident marine biologist on board our skiff. We had
chosen this particular week in part because there'd be a naturalist on board,
and Jackie did not disappoint. She's what in old movies would have been
described as a pistol, or perhaps as having a lot of moxie. She's a
mile-a-minute Energizer Bunny bundle of energy. She is also one of these women
who always looks "put together" in a classic way. Bouffant hairstyle,
careful make-up, carefully coordinated outfit. Out on the skiff Jackie was a
non-stop source of information about the rock formations, the glaciers and the
marine life. She pointed out the round bowl shapes in the rock formed by the
glaciers versus the V-shaped cuts formed by water. She explained why glacier
ice looks blue (the highly compressed ice - it takes 100 inches of snow to make
one inch of glacial ice - absorbs visible light except at the blue end of the
spectrum). She passed out hot chocolate and came around with a bottle of schnapps
to enhance the hot cocoa (it being eleven o'clock in the morning, I declined
the schnapps). She took pictures of us with our cameras and hers. She even
helped the crew with docking the skiffs.
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| Selfie at the Dawes Glacier |
We got to see the glacier calve off some ice, and we got to see
lots of harbor seals, just at the end of their pupping season, hauled out on
the small ice floes. I spotted a harbor porpoise - a tiny little dolphin (some readers may know these creatures as "nise" - whatever the name, they're adorable) -
swimming by. And we were back in time for lunch. I figured out later on that we
are *always* back in time for lunch.
In the afternoon we attended an introductory safety lecture about
kayaking, mandatory if you want to go kayaking. The good news about it is that
it was presented in an entertaining way and was free from major errors. We also
took a nap (not during the kayak presentation). At around 4 PM I headed up to
the lounge with the intention of reading my book, only to stumble into a
lecture on glaciers, plate tectonics, and everything else given by Jackie. I
think we got a whole semester of geology in 40 minutes. Jackie finished up as
we passed Ford's Terror on our way out of Endicott Arm. We all went out on deck
and looked at the scenery.
Dinner was unremarkable, at least until the whales showed up at
the mouth of Endicott Arm. Someone spotted some spouts in the distance, then we
saw a pair of humpbacks repeatedly breaching and showing their tails and
flukes. People kept jumping up and running over to the windows at whichever
side the whales were on, completely abandoning their dinners. It was probably
Claudia from Denver who spotted the whales first. Claudia and Dave were a
couple about our age, traveling with Dave's dad. Claudia was extremely devoted
to spotting wildlife and seemed always to have at least part of her attention
focused on scanning the water. Dave heads some veterinary medical research
foundation and so we actually chatted about grants management and cancer
research. I must say that the passengers on this excursion were an accomplished
lot: doctors, dentists, nurses and nurse practitioners, CEOs, professors, and a
Member of Congress. Lots of teachers too. And one schlepper who does IT project
management for a government contractor.
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| Seals Hangin' Out on the Ice |
Another interesting point to tonight's dinner: we had taken on
board a National Park Service Wilderness Forest Ranger and someone from the
Southeast Alaska Conservation Corps (SEACC). These two guys were out kayaking
for nine days, checking on the area, counting seals, pulling invasive plants
and doing other eco-tasks. They were happy to be invited on board for a hot
meal and to hitch a ride for a bit. They were also happy to talk with us both
as a group and individually about what they were doing in the area of
preservation. The SEACC guy sat with us at dinner. He had an interesting life
story. He had been raised by homesteaders in an isolated cabin in Alaska (Q: "How many people were there in your town?" A:"It was pretty much just us."), went to school in
Washington State, grad school at UC Davis, then returned to Alaska to do this
kind of work. This was actually his first time in a kayak, and here he was out
for a week and a half paddling the Inside Passage.I must mention as well that his mother had been raised in Brooklyn and wound up raising children in the Alaskan wilderness. Now, that's a change of scenery!
Tues, 7/8: Robert's Passage
One of the pleasures cruising is waking up every morning in a
different beautiful place. This morning I left my cabin to find us anchored in
a cove by Roberts Island in the Frederick Sound.The morning activity was a bushwhack
hike on Roberts Island, led by the high energy and fun Megan. Large portions of
the Tongass National Forest are undeveloped and so most hiking is by finding
your own path rather than walking a defined trail. Since this is a rainforest
environment the terrain is wet, lush and thick. Lovely forests of Sitka spruce and alder. The walk was a little bit
challenging, including scrambling over fallen trees, climbing hills and pushing
through brush, but not too bad. We didn't see any wildlife but we did see bear
scat so there was evidence that there were bears about.
And what did you do on your vacation? Looked at poop.
We also were introduced to a particularly nasty plant, devil's
club. It's a plant with dinner plate sized leaves, and both the stems and the
leaves are loaded with thorns. If you grab one of these you're in for a world
of hurt. Interestingly, apparently the plant has medicinal uses in treating
diabetes. I'd see, and know to avoid, devil's club on all my hikes in Alaska.
It must be a north-western plant, since the book I'm reading, which takes place
in Montana, mentions a character walking through a forest of alder and devil's
club. We also looked at huge skunk cabbage (an early spring favorite of bears,
both because it matures early in the season and because its oxalic acid crystals
help stimulate the bears bowels after months of hibernation) and saw some big
banana slugs.
And what did you do on your vacation? Learned about bear laxatives.
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| In the Woods on the First Bushwhack |
While we were out bushwhacking others were doing shorter hikes, paddle-boarding, kayaking or taking tours in the motorized skiffs. In the afternoon I went out with a guided kayak tour, co-led by
Mark, the expedition leader, and Tess, a knowledgeable and friendly young woman
who is an earnest at-one-with-nature sort of person, though quick with a warm
smile. The ship's kayaks are all doubles, which is generally not my preferred
choice, but it would up being nice sharing a boat and being the expert helper
for someone less experienced. I was paired with Claudia, who of course noticed
lots of wildlife - primarily eagles. We paddled up into Roberts Cove, landed
for a bit and did another mini bushwhack, where we got to look at more poop -
both bear and moose this time. Mark, who is the equivalent of "Julie, your
cruise director" of The Love Boat (except his hair is much longer), did a
great job over the week of coordinating the activities. There were usually a
lot of things going on: various long and short hikes, kayak outings, standup
paddle boarding, and skiff rides. Of course, people were constantly changing
their minds about what they were going to do. Mark handled it all very smoothly
and always with a (only occasionally strained) smile.
After a nice dinner we went to the lounge for Jackie's lecture on
humpback whales, interrupted by sightings of Dall's porpoise then, as if on
cue, a humpback whale. It was a lecture with a lab class! The whale hung
around for quite a while, lunge feeding at the surface. It would come up nose
first with its mouth open, grab a bunch of fish or krill or whatever, then dive
back down. It never fully breached and never showed its tail, but watching it
out there feeding was quite spectacular.
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| Humpback Whale! |
Weds 7/9: Thomas Bay, Cascade Falls
In the morning I kayaked with V in a double. This was an
"open kayak" meaning that you could go wherever you wanted on your
own, provided it was within a very limited perimeter around the ship. We putzed
around looking at eagles and a big waterfall. We were out for about an hour
overall We received a mild rebuke upon
our return from Tess for having paddled too close to shore (bear risk,
apparently); we recovered from this scolding in the hot tub where we took a
nice soak.I must say that V is really taking to kayaking too - is there a double in our future? If so, how many more anniversaries do we have left?
Now, the previous evening when they had announced the activities
Mark had described one of the hikes, up Cascade Falls, as being a highly
challenging five hour killer hike - more like he was trying to scare people
away from it than encourage them on. Having heard this description I was leaning towards one of the easier hikes, the Patterson River Trail. the However, after Mark finished his discouraging
description Megan came up to the people who had been on the bushwhack she had
led the previous day (we happened to mostly be sitting in the same area) and
whispered to us that it wasn't so bad as Mark had made it seem and talked the
hike up. Well, despite this strange and contradictory description there were so
many takers for this hike that they had to run two sections: the originally
planned 6:45 AM group and a second group at 12:30, to which I was assigned. My
group was led by Tess and consisted of me, two young Australian woman, and a
(also Australian) mom with two 12-ish year old girls. The other group was
coming out to the trailhead just as our boat hit the shore, and they looked
pretty bedraggled. Except for Jackie, who marched out of the forest looking
like she was ready to do the hike again. Only her hairstyle was worse for the
wear (it was fully restored by the time we saw her again).
Our group's hike was shorter than what the early group did. They
were out for six hours, while we were out for maybe 4 1/2. We turned back
perhaps a little earlier than planned because the mom of the girls got to her
point of having had enough. The morning group had apparently gotten into a
mindset to push on and on, trying to reach a lake down the trail (ultimately
they turned around before they got there). They wound up staying out for an
hour longer than planned, while we were out an hour less time than planned. I
later compared notes with Sean, a lawyer turned ju jitsu instructor whom I had
met on the bushwhack, and by turning around when we did we indeed missed some
of the more challenging elements - log crossings over more significant chasms,
and the like. Still, it was indeed a challenging hike, up alongside the same
waterfall we had seen from the kayak in the morning. Walking along narrow,
slippery planks and logs. Scrambles up and down steep terrain. Overall
elevation gain of over 1,000 feet. I'd say that some of the rock scramble hikes
in Shenandoah National Park are actually more technically challenging, but this
had the complication of being very wet, muddy and slippery. How muddy was it?
Well, they literally hosed us off when we got back onto the Endeavor. And then
hosed off our shoes some more. The hike was really worth it. Standing in the
spray of a powerful waterfall. Gorgeous, lush forest. Tall cliff faces. Really
marvelous sights. And a workout - my quads hurt by the time I got back and
still ached the next day, which fortunately was a more restful day as we were
spent the morning cruising Frederick Sound.
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| Cascade Falls Group |
In the evening we took advantage of a tour of the engine room
with Jeff, the boat's engineer. Like many of the crew he had an interesting
life's story as a serially itinerant wanderer. His story was at least as
interesting as the description of the reverse osmosis desalinator and the
Diesel engines, even to me.
Up in the lounge Ken, one of the expedition guides, gave a
somewhat meandering lecture about the history and Tlingit lore of
"ABC's" of the local islands: Admiralty, Baranof and Chicagoff. Ken's
lecture had the usual distractions of a spouting whale and a gorgeous sunset.
We learned that you can tell the history of the water temperatures that a
salmon has lived in from its scales and that you can actually "bar
code" a salmon by putting it in a known succession of water temperatures -
which apparently is done for research tracking purposes. We also learned that
the traditional Tlingit name of Admiralty Island is Kootznahoo, meaning
Fortress of the Brown Bear. Ken is one of the older guides and clearly has
devoted a lot of time over the years to learning about and developing a deep
appreciation of the flora, fauna and culture of the area.
