Two for the Price of One in Tracy Arm

 June 16

Alaska has more than 30,000 square miles of glacier ice (that’s about 5% of the state) and some 100,000 glaciers. One glacier, the Malaspina Glacier, is almost as large as the state of Rhode Island.

Cruising next to a glacier is beautiful, but also quite dangerous. When a glacier calves it creates a tsunami effect in the water and can create waves 25 feet or higher. So it’s best to stay at least 2500 feet, or a half-mile, from the face of an active glacier.

And then there’s the ice itself. Depending on the current, floating ice can move swiftly. And what you see above the water is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Typically only one-ninth of the volume of an iceberg is above water.

So what you can’t see, can hurt you. Engelenbak is a steel boat, weighing 110 tons, and even with all of our weight you could hear and feel the boat shutter when we made contact with a piece of ice. Even small ones. No imagination needed to understand the fate of the Titanic.

We had a beautiful sunny day heading up Tracy Arm where we were treated to not just one, but two tidal glaciers. One at the north terminus and the other south, both named Sawyer Glacier.

Turning left at the end of the arm, we motored to North Sawyer through a navigable channel only .3-mile wide towered by 5,000-foot granite wall.

The waterway was clogged with an ice pack floating across the inlet and large chunks of ice clunked against the hull as we gingerly pushed our way through, with hopes we could make it to the end to see the glacier. Three quarters of the way in we lost GPS reception due to the steep ridges surrounding us.

Words and photos cannot capture the impact to the senses of this fjord....  The echoing sounds of cascading water crashing from one waterfall after another down thousands of feet of craggy vertical walls ...

... The basic maternal instincts reflecting in the eyes of mother harbor seals guarding their newborn pups on floating ice. And the harsh realities of nature, as witnessed by this injured sea pup.

... The azure blue rays radiating from floating ice sculptures. It’s almost too much to absorb at once.

... And of course, there are the glaciers. The North and South Sawyer Glaciers are equally spectacular. Seeing them under sunny eyes was an added bonus.