What a delight it’s to wake up in the morning to discover distant snow-covered mountains as we sail through Glacier Bay National Park. The scenery is simply stunning on a day like today, where the sunshine enhances the vast natural beauty of Southeast Alaska.
Our first stop this morning was South Marble Island. Here, the recently de-glaciated rock provides suitable nesting habitat to a number of seabirds. Steller sea lions have also found a natural refuge to haul out on the rocks. Just behind South Marble Island, we could see Mount Fairweather rising proudly high up into the blue sky. We continued our way up the bay while we kept scanning for wildlife. Along the steep mountainsides, we found many mountain goats. Some of them still roam at low altitude, since the winter seems to have stolen time from spring. As the snow melts, new vegetation emerges from the ground. Goats find more protection at higher altitudes, but it seems like there still isn't enough food for them near the safe summits.
We had a brief sighting of a mother brown bear with at least one cub. This was exciting for us, since it is the first mother with cubs of the season for us. Males emerge from their dens earlier, and females with young are the last ones to leave their state of winter lethargy.
At the northern end of Tarr Inlet, we spent time admiring the majesty of Margerie and Grand Pacific glaciers. The clear day allowed us to see far away above the glaciers, and give us perspective of the magnitude of these natural wonders. Margerie calved a few times, emitting that magnificent sound, which reminded us of thunder.
We peeked into Geike Inlet to find a couple black bears feeding on barnacles. National Geographic Sea Lion slowly moved closer and closer to give us a wonderful view of one of them.
We headed back to Bartlett Cove, where we went for a walk in the forest. As the day ended, we listened to the late bird calls in the forest, and realized how lucky we are to be here, surrounded by the wilderness of Southeast Alaska.
