Day 77 of our summer trip.
When we got up this morning, it was just about the maximum low tide for today. Looking out of our back window, first toward the left then toward the right, you can see how much of the shore is exposed. The water covers up a lot of things, like pipes and logs as well as rocks and gravel. The black spot just off shore is another log. A couple days ago, there was a lower tide that uncovered it enough to see that it was a log. Some of the boat traffic can be seen in the second picture.
We see that there is another cruise ship in port today. There has been a different one each day that we have been here. In the close up, you can see a long blue pipe running from the tower and along the dock. Yesterday, on our cruise, we were told that it is a conveyor for loading coal, that has been brought to port from the mines via train, onto ships to be taken elsewhere.
We packed a lunch and took an excursion to Exit Glacier, not far from here. It can be seen to the left of the sign that marks the entrance to Kenai Fjords National Park as well as in a little closer view.
There is a trail that leads to the glacier. At one time, you could get right up next to the glacier, but it has melted year after year and is now not so close to the view point. We decided to take the trail and here is what we saw. All along the trail there are posts with years marked on them, showing where the glacier would have terminated at the time. A sign shows where the glacier terminated at various years, starting with 1815 when it extended just about to the foot of the hills. By 1951, it had retreated to just about the edge of the lake that is circled with trees now. You can just see the place where the river leaves the lake, in the NOW picture at the right. This is not a deep lake, in fact it is mostly moraine, or the gravel sediment deposited by the glacial melt, as is the trail that we are walking on. There are water rivulets running through the moraine as the glacier is continually melting. Imagine this valley completely filled with ice many hundreds of feet thick. Also, notice that the snow is no longer heavy on top of the mountains in the background.
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A photo of the glacier, below, and the Harding Icefield above, to the left. The icefield is melting and causing many waterfalls down the side of the mountain. The picture on the right shows some of the trail leading to the look out point by the side of the glacier. The sign at the bottom right says that , if you would have stood at this spot in 1998, you would have been able to touch the glacier. That is how much it has melted since then.
We made it up the trail, as seen behind Earl. This is the closest that we can get to the glacier, today.
You can see the moraine (black) and melting running water that sometimes pools in the ice. Here is a closer look at the Harding Icefield and the waterfalls coming from it.
We saw people at the base of the glacier (zoomed way in), even though there a multitude of signs warning of the danger of doing that because it is unpredictable as to when a chunk of ice may calve off. The river running from the base of the glacier is pretty gray. That is because it contains a lot of "glacial flour" or finely ground rock suspended in the water.
On our way out of the park, we stopped for a photo op. You can see how the river sort of splits and winds its way through the moraine. They call it a braided river, when it does that.
Here is the sign for the day. We were exploring the area near the docks and saw this one. I think it is trying to tell us that the railroad bed is elevated and long wheelbased vehicles should be careful that they don’t become high centered and get stuck on the tracks. By the time we got back to the trailer, the tide had come back in. Everything that was exposed along the shore was now covered back up and small waves were lapping the rocks near our parking place.
Meanwhile, out in Resurrection Bay, the sea gulls were having a grand time feasting on something, probably fish pieces that had been washed off the fishing boats, after they came into the harbor, and were now traveling with the current out to the bay. The white line is all sea gulls with more flying above. And, our friendly resident otter was doing his otter thing just off shore.
Earl, ever observant, saw this eagle perched on the pilings not far from us. You can see the sea gulls (white dots) in the background. Suddenly, he/she started squawking. Was he calling a friend?
Sure enough, another eagle came and landed on the next piling. Then they both began squawking.
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Finally, there was peace. All of the eagle pictures were taken between 9:55 PM and 10:05 PM. It is still quite light at that time here.
We’re going to miss this place, when we move on tomorrow.
Day 76 of our summer trip.
This is our first full day in Seward and it is going to be a busy one, as you will see. We used one of the Alaska Tour Saver 2 for 1 coupons to visit the Alaska Alaska SeaLife Center. There is a walking tour of the building that begins at this fishing boat and a display of the many seafoods that are produced and processed in Alaska.
This center works with and studies all sorts of sea life, fish, mammals, birds, etc. They also do some rehabilitation work. Here are some examples. Fish and crabs and salmon of all kinds. These are Coho Salmon fry.
Octopi both real and imagined. This real one really is a reddish color, but the lighting and reflections on the glass make it look sort of purple. Where he or she has attached to the window in the corner, is about the shad of red that the whole octopus is. The orange one is made from trash that was found in the ocean. It is sad that there is so much garbage polluting the ocean, but the octopus that is made from it is kind of cute.
Jellyfish and Harbor seals. This guy was just resting in the water with his eyes closed.
Two kinds of puffin, horned (left) and crested (right).
I don’t know what kind of duck this is, but it has a very strange look to its feathers, whether it is in or out of the water. There was much more to see there,but just so much room in the blog.
When we were finished seeing what was at the SeaLife Center, we drove around town for a little while. There are many murals around Seward. One is right across from the SeaLife Center. It is very appropriate as you can see. I like the way they even painted birds sitting above the windows. Alaska elections are in August, so there are many campaign signs around, too, not just in Seward.
Seward has a lot of history as Mile 0 of the original Iditarod trail in the early 1900s, when it was used to deliver mail and supplies to the miners from Seward to Nome, AK. The trail was used until the railway was established, drove the dog sled method of delivering supplies out of business. There is a small park dedicated to the trail’s Mile 0
On the way back to camp, we saw a couple of interesting dwellings. First, the mermaid on the front of one of the houses and second, a unique camping trailer. I guess that they must have had a leaky roof and this is how they fixed it. Looks like they had a little problem with the roof being bigger than something that they were trying to drive by on the front corner.
Just looking around, we saw an elaborate carving in front of the dog sled ride tour company. There are so many carvings and murals in town, that I didn't take that many pictures of them because it would have been too much. I am taking so many photos, as it is, that I have a hard time sorting through them to pick ones for the blog. I am starting to realize that I won't be able to photograph every minute of wonderful views and interesting things that we see along the way. Our unusual sign for today is located right outside the campground. Of course, those of use who live in earthquake country near the ocean or a large bay, like the San Francisco Bay, are familiar with the tsunami warning sign, but I had never seen a "DEAR XING" sign before. Very cute and it catches your eye.
We had just a little while to relax before it was time to check in for the Major Marine Tours cruise of the Kenai Fjords National Park. We used another of the 2 for 1 coupons for this trip. We will be boarding at the end of this dock, toward the cruise ship. There were too many other boats around the one we were going on, so I couldn't get a good photo of the tour boat. Yes, a different ship arrived this morning. As we left the harbor, we sailed past our campground and took this shot of our trailer. You can see our big window in the back of the trailer, the better to see all of the activity going on in the bay.
We saw lots of scenery. Mountains rose right out of the water without much shoreline. We learned that a fjord is a huge valley that has been carved out by glaciers millions of years ago, then the water has flowed back in, filling up the valley. We were told that the water is almost as deep as the mountains are high, in some places. Most of the mountains just continue to slope down into the water very abruptly without any shallow area at the water line. The little island, with trees on it, fell about 6-10 ft. during the 1964 earthquake. That plunged the land into saltwater and killed the trees around the edge.
We saw some animals out in the wild. There were mountain goats (white spots, if you look closely and use some imagination) high up on the hills and Stellar sea lions on the rocks.
We saw birds, too. Nesting kittiwakes (left) and tufted puffins (right).
But, what caused the most excitement and interest onboard, were the gray whales. Now, I never saw enough of the whale to tell what kind it was, but we were assured that they were gray whales. These are the best photos that I could get. First is a whale diving, then a tale fluke right in the middle (of course, it is sideways, but we did actually see a couple times where the tail was in that nice whale tail position that you want to photograph, but they are faster than I am with my camera. None of them jumped out of the water.) and the third picture is of a spout that the whale blew when it came up for air.
These little guys that look somewhat like small orcas are Dall’s porpoises. They like to swim in the break of the water that the boat makes as it moves forward.
At the end of the cruise, some of the kids that were on board, who had been doing certain tasks during the cruise, received their Junior Ranger Badge.
The National Parks Ranger, who was on board and narrated what we were seeing and what to look for, was very informative. The meal that they served was delicious. All in all it was a very interesting trip. Because of the whale sighting, we didn’t have time to actually go to the Bear Glacier. Here is all that we saw of the Bear Glacier (zoomed in as far as I can). The black line down the middle is where two glaciers have come together to form the Bear Glacier. It is called the medial moraine and consists of ground rock from the sides of the mountains that each glacier had been carving before they came together. There is a similar area of ground rock moraine on each edge of the glacier as it continues to drift down the mountain, carving deeper into the valley that will emerge as the glacier melts.
It is after 10:00 PM when we head into the harbor and it is still light out , as you can see from this photo of the roof of a building on shore. We had seen this roof while we were riding around, but there was no place to take a photo that would show the whole thing until we saw it on the way back to the dock. It is a replica of the Alaskan Flag (the big dipper and the north star).
It has been another busy day with lots to tell you about. I think it is time to get some rest.
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