Bumping Through the Bergs

Another nice Southeast Alaska day. After breakfast we went into town to return the movie and get a sandwich for our tour this afternoon. They are starting to decorate town for the Little Norway Festival this weekend. There’s a Viking Feast tonight at 6PM, but we’re not sure we’ll get back in time. This is an eat with your hands and no napkins dinner. As we sat in front of the Java Haus watching the goings on, we started to see people in Norwegian dress.

About 12:45 we ambled across the street to meet Capt Ron and our fellow tour-mates. We will be going across Frederick Sound (east) and then up the LeConte Bay hopefully to the glacier. This is the 1st trip up the bay this year so we don’t know how far we’ll get. Coming out of the harbor there were Stellar Sea Lions piled up on a buoy sleeping. Another one kept jumping up to get on but the Big One said - Nope no room! The mountains are majestic and crossing the sound we start to see white shapes floating in the distance. Then a “bump” we’ve found our 1st ice berg! First they are fairly small and partly melted as the boat winds around them. Soon we are exclaiming - look! Wow! Awesome… as we pass bigger ones. Now they are getting bigger and bigger. More and more clog the water and they are all shapes and sizes. The boat is bumping and scraping our way through. Sometimes we are up on a shelf of ice and you can feel the berg roll and the boat slide back into the water. We are going slowly and the shapes and colors are phenomenal - every one more beautiful than the last. Every time we think this is as far as we can go Capt Ron finds another opening - bump, scrap, stop, float, through the bergs we glide. As we maneuver around an ‘S’ curve the bergs are much bigger… and we see LeConte Glacier in front of us. It appears white and ice blue. The glacier is about 1.5 miles away and Capt Ron says that’s as close as we can get. We don‘t want the ice to close up behind us.

The glacier is on the mainland on the Horn Cliff side of Frederick Sound. The snowfield above the glacier runs through the Stikine River valley. LeConte is the southernmost active tidewater glacier in North America. The glacier tends to move forward with the spring melting, and retreat again in the fall. LeConte has retreated approximately 1.2 miles since 1991.

There are Harbor Seals laying on the bergs in the distance and they slide off into to the water before we can approach them. Then suddenly in the water among the bergs a head will pop up - playing hide and seek. We floated in front of the glacier while we had lunch on the deck, hoping it would calve. No luck today.

It took us 3 hours to pick our way through the ice! Now we have to pick our way back out. The tide is low now and it’s stranded some of the bergs on the rocky shore and on top of other bergs. The light is changing too and it causes some of the bergs to turn an amazing turquoise and ocean blue. Coming out of the bay we saw an eagle perched on top of a deep blue berg - but the boat had picked up speed on it’s way home.

We got back to the harbor about 6pm. Too tired for the feast we stopped for Chinese food at Joan Mei across from the ferry terminal. Then went back to camp, played Scrabble ( I lost - 1st tray was all vowels)..eh!

It was a great day and a fantastic tour.

Pictures: Out of the harbor, Sorry - no room, Entering LeConte Bay, Ice Bergs in the bay (3), Us and the bergs, Getting closer to the glacier (4), The berg beneath, Le Conte Glacier (2), Glacier and us, Berg and changing colors (2), Leaving Le Conte Bay.