Sometimes, I think, when trying something new, it’s best to jump right in and not have any clue what you’re really in for! There is something to be said for not knowing what you don't know, for jumping in with both feet, for figuring things out as they come along. That way, everything is new and fresh and an adventure.Such was my experience with backcountry sea kayaking in Glacier Bay National Park. I worked on a small cruise boat in GBNP in the summer of 2002. It was a magical, wonderful experience. At the time, I knew I wanted to go back someday and really experience all that GBNP has to offer. So, when Grubby Guy and I were kicking around summer vacation ideas, I threw a kayak adventure in Glacier Bay out there. Since GGuy had a friend in Sitka, we decided to split our time between visiting with friends and deep sea fishing in Sitka with a backcountry kayak adventure.
In sum, it was incredible and amazing, with some pretty hefty doses of misery thrown in.
Here’s how it all went down…After our flight from Sitka to Juneau was canceled, we had to make arrangements to make our way to Gustavus the next day. We had planned on camping at Bartlett Cove and getting an early start, but that wasn't going to happen. We spent the night in Juneau and then hopped on an early flight to Gustavus. Once we landed in Gustavus, after a quick 30 minute flight in a small Cessna from Juneau, we picked up another couple at a guesthouse in Gustavus and went to Bartlett Cove for our orientation. A guide from Glacier Bay Sea Kayaks went over tides and timing and other necessities for the next few days on the water, and got us decked out in our borrowed gear – double 18-foot kayak, heavy-duty rain paints, thick rubber boots, life jacket, paddles and spray skirt. We packed everything we owned into dry bags – clothes, food, first aid kit, cameras, tent, sleeping bags – packed the dry bags into the kayak and then waited for the camper orientation from the National Park Service. The camper orientation talked about the “Leave No Trace” backcountry ethic, the “natural” toilet (aka: tide), and then focused a lot on bear awareness…Glacier Bay has a pretty heavy concentration of both brown (think big Grizzlies) and black bears. The Park Service emphasized what to do if you encounter a bear, when to fight back and when to play dead. They pointed to a few spots on the map where previous campers had encountered “menacing” bears, and a few spots that were closed to campers due to bear activity. Then, they mentioned that they would not come looking for you until one full day after you failed to report back. I sort of freaked out at this point! The bear info concerned me, but GGuy and the Park Service employee calmed me down, saying that we “looked like reasonable” people that we should be fine. I tried not to take note of the look of concern that crossed her face when we told her we would not be taking along any bear spray.
I did not have time to fret, we had about 2 hours to get through a narrow, shallow passage just north of Bartlett Cove with the high tide or we would have to go the long way around and face some strong rip currents. We headed north – it was super shallow, and the water was super clear. We could see the bottom as we cruised north – small rocks and sea shells and grass all glided by beneath our boat.
We paddled through the narrows and into the Beardslee Islands and to the Bartlett River. The tide was still high, so we paddled up the river about a mile. GGuy fished off the kayak, catching a few Dolly Vartan trout. We pulled over to the shore, ate a quick lunch of sausage, cheese and crackers, and GGuy fished a little more from the shore. We walked up the bank of the river, following an animal trail for a bit. We saw huge paw prints in the mud and found a huge mound of scat, which did nothing to assuage my bear fears. We got back into the kayak and floated down the river once the high tide began to wane. GGuy caught a pink salmon, and we tied it to the back of the boat for a little dinner treat!
We got back out into the Beardslee Islands and paddled north. It was so calm and clear, and we were the ONLY people around. It was a stillness I’ve very rarely experienced. We had several pairs of Harbor Porpoise diving for fish around us. They would announce their presence with a “Whoosh!” and then dive again for fish. It was so still and calm, that even this exhale was crystal clear, even from a distance. I was a little worried about the salmon hanging off the boat…I thought it easy pickins for the Porpoise or one of the seals whose heads kept popping up around us. Two seals followed us for quite a while. We named them “Fred” and “Lou.” We set up camp that night just northeast of the Kidney Islands, next to a small creek so we could gather fresh water with the filter that GGuy brought. There was some bear scat around, but nothing super fresh. We saw a couple of good tent spots, so we unloaded and set up camp. It started drizzling while we were still paddling, and it pretty much rained the entire rest of the night. We set up the tent in the rain, cooked our dinner in the rain, ate in the rain, brushed our teeth in the rain, then gave up and crawled into the tent to dry off and warm up. GGuy and I both fell asleep mid-sentence we were so beat from the day. We woke up several times during the night, and one would say to the other: “It’s STILL raining!” “Yep, STILL raining!” One other sound woke us in the night…the sound of wolves howling. Now, I’ve heard coyotes howling plenty of times during my camping excursions in Colorado, but I’ve never heard a sound quite like this. It was more guttural and lonesome. It was half bark/half howl, and truly a sound I will not soon forget…Wolves in Alaska!
Waking up stiff and sore and knowing I would have to leave the cozy tent and put on full rain gear just to go to the bathroom was not an inviting thought. But, I couldn’t stay where I was, so I put on the gear and got up. It was still drizzling, but was an incredible, peaceful morning. We set up the stove, made some coffee (So delicious! Just what I needed!) and oatmeal. We pumped up a little water from the creek and packed up the boat again. We had to drag the boat through a lot of mud and crustacean-crusted rocks to the sea. The tide was incredibly low – it can very by up to 20 feet! We had a hard time navigating our way out of the Bearselees – we made a few wrong turns and had to backtrack to find a way out that had enough water.
We saw a few bears walking the shores of some of the islands (well, I had the "bear eye" as GGuy called it - I would spot them and point them out to him so he could look at them through the binoculars), and a ton otters floating in the water around the Bearslees. There were easily 100 or more otters, all floating on their backs in ones and twos and in larger “rafts.” They would pop up their little heads, holding their little hands and look at us and then dive back under the water. It was so adorable. One came up about 10 yards from the right side of the boat – looked at me with total surprise and dove back under! It was one of those moments where I felt completely connected to the Universe and all of the creatures in it. We were completely alone with the creatures and wilderness fairies. We could not see or hear another boat. It was just us, the otters, the bears, the seals, the ducks and the wild birds.
We stopped for a break once we got out of the Beardslees and into the larger bay. Even though it was getting to be high tide, and we should have had an easy time of it, it seemed like we were paddling against the tide. We would paddle and paddle and paddle and not get very far. It was hard work. We pulled over and tried to contemplate a jaunt over into Beartrack Cove. It would have been an additional 6 miles round trip, against the tide and into a headwind. Neither one of us had that kind of stamina in us. (Full confession: when we pulled over, I asked GGuy if we could just paddle back to the Lodge and get a room…I wanted a warm, comfortable bed, a hot shower…and no bears! Luckily he convinced me this was a bad idea and that I would regret it…)
We decided to cross the bay to York Creek, about 3 miles further and across an open span of the bay. Just outside of York Creek, we ran into a couple with inflatable rafts who had just come from York Creek and reported seeing a “fairly good-sized” Grizzly” by the mouth of the creek. They headed off to Beartrack Cove to hike up the stream to the Glacier! Their plan was to raft back down the creek! And, I thought I was nuts! I was super nervous about setting up camp at York Creek because of the bear sighting, but I was also super tired and damp and in need of a rest. We arrived about 3 p.m. and picked a spot, stamped down the brass and walked up and down the beach clapping, ringing our bear bell and yelling “Hey Bear!” It was all we could do – that, and be super aware of our surroundings. GGuy and I walked to York Creek and he fished for salmon off a point of rocks. I mostly stayed on the beach, clanging my little bell, scanning for bears, and picking out fossils in the rocks. GGuy fished until about 6:45 p.m., then we walked back to camp and cooked our dinner. It had stopped raining before we set up camp, so it was quite amazing to hang out on our little, private beach, eating our dinner, hanging out and absorbing the serenity all around. We watched as the little island in front of our camp first appeared and then became a bigger island as the tide rolled out. We crawled into the tent pretty early and literally passed out mid-sentence again. I remember laughing at GGuy because his eyes were half closed like a cat…then my own slammed shut and I was down for the count!
We woke up early again, ate a little breakfast and were contemplating the day ahead when I looked down the beach, and about 70 yards away, a mid-sized black bear was making his way down the beach. I stood up saying “Hey Bear!” to let him know we were there and then stood by GGuy so that we would appear larger. We rang the bell and kept talking to the bear. He was curious about us, but eventually lumbered into the trees…only to come back out to the beach about 70 yards on the other side of us. He was clearly on his way to the salmon creek, and we were merely a detour. We packed up pretty quickly after that and headed up bay with the tide.
We stopped just before Spokane Cove to rest and use the restroom, then pushed over to Lester Island, a distance of about 4.5 miles. We pulled over when we reached Lester Island for another rest. Cary laid down in the gravel for a nap, and I stretched my back and legs and arms and looked for interesting things in the small rocks. There were some great camping spots on Lester island, but we knew we had a big water crossing ahead, and rather than try to tackle it in the morning before getting picked up by the sighseeing boat, we decided to push all the way to Sebree Island, where we would be picked up in the morning.
We had a big, long open-water crossing from Lester to Sebree Island. It was approximately 4.5 miles across, without the relative safety of a shoreline to follow. The seas were pretty choppy and the paddling was tough. We were paddling slower than we could walk. Between the choppy water and tide, we averaged about 2 miles per hour. It seriously felt like we would never get there…that Sebree was just a mirage. We kept paddling and paddling and paddling – encouraging each other to keep paddling, that each one brought us that much closer to our destination. When we finally reached the island, we pulled into a little private cove on the tip, about 1 mile from our pick up spot. I was sooooooo happy to get out of that blasted kayak and rest and walk and stand and put the paddle down! The sun had come out halfway into our big crossing, so it was nice to dry out and warm up and sit in the sun, surrounding by stunning beauty. We hung out on our private beach and watched the sea and the sky. GGuy fished off of a rocky point on Sebree, and caught a lovely pink salmon that we cooked up for dinner. We hung out on the rocks and ate dinner and just felt really lucky to be there. It was a long, exhausting day, and we crawled into the tent just after 8 p.m. and called it a night!
We woke up about 6 a.m. and loaded up the kayak so we could make our rendezvous with the tour boat. We found the rock cairns past campers had set up on the beach and knew we were in the right spot. Another kayaker pulled in just after us, and we made coffee and swapped trip stories. He’d kayaked all the way from Juneau and been out for 14 days…solo! As we were waiting for the tour boat to pick us up, I spotted a Grizzly bear with my "bear eye" across the small sound, and we watched him for a while through GGuy’s binocs. It was incredible! He would flip giant rocks like they were nothing and then stick his nose in the hole from the rock and suck out the tiny fish that had gotten stuck there with the last tide! It was truly an awesome sight!
I felt a little like wildlife when the tour boat stopped to pick us up…the tourists on the boat was looking at us and taking photos. Pretty funny! The boat took us up the West Arm of Glacier Bay. We went into Tidal Inlet, picked up more campers at the Queen Inlet, then made our way up to Reid Glacier, Lamplugh Glacier and Johns Hopkins Glacier. We saw some pretty incredible calving at Johns Hopkins…huge slabs of ice rumbling like thunder and then sliding to the sea with an incredible roar. Awesome!
As happy as I was to know there was a shower in my very near future, I was also sad that the adventure had come to an end, that it was no longer just GGuy and I in Alaska, that we were giving up the serenity of the wilderness for creature comforts of civilization. Our time out there was intense and wonderful.I definitely felt the solitude of wilderness. There were many points during the trip when we were the only man-made objects around. It was almost overwhelming how tiny that made me feel. Tiny, insignificant and totally connected – to the otters, to the seals, to the trees, to the bald eagles soaring overhead, to the wilderness. That was an incredible feeling.
If I had to do it all over again, I’d bring larger containers for water. I'd stay longer and make littler jumps between stops so each day wasn’t such a long grind. I’d explore more of the tiny coves that abound in GBNP. I’d also relax a little more about the bears. Be aware, be safe, but be in the moment more. I’d find myself relaxing more as the time spent at each campsite went on, but I definitely worried too much.
I am so glad I went with GGuy. There’s no one I trust more or would have wanted to be there with. As GGuy said: “We are so lucky!”
No comments:
Post a Comment