Bushwhacking

By far the most amazing thing we did on this trip was bushwhacking - something I'd never heard of until it was offered as an excursion on the boat.  By definition, bushwhacking is hiking off-trail through the bush, where there is no cleared path; may require hikers to force their way through overgrown areas and branches. In total, we went on four different bushwhacks, and each of them varied in intensity. The "hard charger" that we did on our fourth day was absolutely insane. There were six of us, plus a guide. There was not even the hint of a trail and we literally crawled straight up to the top of the island (only about 700 feet) on our hands and knees. Getting down was even more difficult and the landscape was fraught with Devil's Club, a plant native to Alaskan rainforests. Its stem and leaves are covered with sharp prickles that can cause serious and severe allergic reactions.  We came across Devil's Club in every bushwhack and it always made the hike more challenging. Lee was constantly on the lookout for bears and it is a little crazy that although we were smack dab in the middle of bear country, we never saw any while we were out there. We did every bushwhack with friends that we made the first day - and we really enjoyed our time with them. Safe to say, no one on our boat had the same experience that we had on land!  I could definitely spend an entire week in Alaska just bushwhacking. 

               

Tracy Arm

Day six began at Tracy Arm, a fjord located about 45 miles south of Juneau. The fjord is about 30 miles long, 1/5 of it is covered in ice; the water is so deep (more than 1,200 feet) that our boat couldn't drop anchor. This day is tied for my favorite of the trip. We woke up in tiny Holkham Bay, surrounded by icebergs. We then took a skiff to the South Sawyer Glacier. This glacier starts in British Columbia and flows northwest for 31 miles to the head of Tracy Arm.  Our excursion leader for the day told us that when she started with unCruise ten years ago, Holkham Bay was completed packed with ice, making the glacier inaccessible. Even just two weeks before we arrived, the bay was jammed with icebergs, so we were the first boat of the season to make it into the bay. The ability of our skiff pilot to avoid all of the icebergs, some as large as three-story buildings, was insane.  The glacier itself was incredible and we even saw it calve. Even more impressive were the seals. Because of the geographic makeup of the fjord, orcas, which hunt seals, cannot navigate in Holkham Bay. As a result, it is a primary birthing area for seals.  We saw more than 50 mother and baby seals resting on icebergs - it was wild. 

   

South Sawyer Glacier

The more brilliant the blue on the iceberg, the older the ice.

Mother and baby seal

That afternoon, we arrived at Sawyer Glacier and spent the afternoon kayaking around the bay. While we were kayaking, we were followed around by seals. Then, just as we arrived back at the boat, one of the crew members told us that there were mountain goats at one of the waterfalls. We headed over and then just looked on in awe as a mother goat guided her two kids across the sheer rocks around the waterfall. Every time a baby made a misstep, rocks crashed into the water around us - Lee couldn't watch, he was so nervous that one of the babies would come take a fatal step.

Sawyer Glacier