Tracy Arm Fjord

I thought Adieu, Juneau would be my last post for our time here in Alaska, but I was wrong.  We slipped in one last adventure before our flight out of here tomorrow morning.

Eric was able to get us on a day cruise to Tracy Arm Fjord with a little luck from crossing our fingers and with a little help from our managers. 

Pure happiness.

We begin our journey to Tracy Arm at one of the small cruise ship docks in town.  We hopped onto the Katlian Express which is named after a Tlingit chief.  (This link that could tell you more about him than I could.) 

The boat and crew took us down south, the farthest south I had been in this area.

The Century.

The southern point of the island we live on.

Eric was most excited to see the glaciers at Tracy Arm.  I was most excited for the all-you-can-drink hot chocolate and herbal tea.

Our hot chocolates.
This logo is for a local coffee shop chain, Heritage Coffee.

It’s starting to move into autumn here.  The few non-evergreen trees in Juneau are turning yellow, adding a new dimension to the green landscape. The pops of color are making me homesick for fall in Arkansas/Oklahoma.  It’s been a few years since I’ve been able to drive through the Ozarks or the hills near my grandparents and see both areas blanketed in a camouflage of browns, reds, and oranges.  I miss it.

With autumn comes the color change as well as chillier weather.  I can see my breath nearly all day now, which has made me become overly conscious about how much I’m breathing now that there’s visual evidence. 

Does anyone else feel like a
dragon when you puff steam
out of your nose?

The day we went to Tracy Arm was one of those cold manifestations of fall.  Almost constantly, I sipped on scorching hot chocolate, moving it quickly to the back of my throat to let it warm my insides before it could burn my tongue.  As we watched the islands float by us while we drank our hot cocoas and teas, we saw tall wisps of water, here and there, come from the surface of the water.  The captain brought us closer, and at least ten humpback whales came into view.  They were pretty active and flashed us their tails quite a bit.  At one point, two or three of them decided to move closer to the boat and came within ten feet of us.  You don’t realize how huge they are until they come close enough to make you feel small.  The whales are nearly as long as the fifty foot boat we were on.

We traveled on, after a half hour of whale watching, into the fjord where the waters were a bright teal.  We also passed by a few waterfalls.

Valley carved out by a glacier.

Three hours into the boat ride, we came across the first glacier, Sawyer glacier.  It’s a half mile long and stretches back 30 miles. 

This glacier is a calving glacier, meaning huge chunks of ice fall off of it into the fjord water below.  We got to see it calve a few times, and each time I was only able to catch the tail end of the calving.

In front of the glacier were a ton of harbor seals.  These little buggers typically like to hide once people see them, but these were nice enough to pose for pictures.

Zoomed up on a few priceless faces.

Along with whales and seals, we also were able to spot a few mountain goats.  Here’s the best picture I could take.  They were up at the top of a cliff, too high for my camera.

We stopped by one more glacier, the North Sawyer Glacier, the traveled the two or three hours back to Juneau.  The ride back was uneventful (at least compared to the ride to the fjord).  We passed by a few huge chunks of ice miles away from the glaciers, but mostly we entertained ourselves by watching videos on Eric’s phone and munching on the lunch the boat provided all the passengers with, a turkey wrap with chips…oh, and hot chocolate. 

It was a great trip for our last weekend in Alaska, a great highlight of the natural beauties of the area.

Now on to to other adventures...

Adventure is out there!