Tracy Arm Cove and Tracy Arm

Mount Sumdum and the Sumdum Glacier greet you on the starboard side as you come northbound up Stephens Passage. The mountain is 6666 feet in elevation. It means "big noise" in the Tlingit language, maybe for the sounds it made when calving. It is now a hanging glacier because it no longer reaches the waterline. The light on it changes the blue of the ice: so pretty.

This a map of the area we are traveling in now.

With plans to eventually stay in Ford's Terror for a few days, starting from Tracy Arm Cove is an excellent jumping off place. Can you find it on the map? Both Tracy and Endicott Arms are around 20 mile long fiords ending in large tide-water glaciers (they meet with the waterline). The water is aqua and milky due to the minerals and silt from the scraping of the ice on the granite walls of the mountains. The color palate of aqua in the water, gray of the rock and green of the alpine mountain tops is spectacular.

Once we got anchored, we hopped into the dinghy and went exploring up Tracy Arm. We didn't go clear to the glacier (we have done that on Dog Star before), but we enjoyed visiting all the waterfalls and icebergs.

This iceberg was grounded on a shoal and calved just as we entered Tracy Arm Cove. Off balance now, it flipped about 90 degrees. It made quite a splash!

These are some interesting shapes we saw along our way...

Some of the ice is clear, some is dirty, sometimes it looks very columnar, sometimes dappled. It is dripping as it melts, making a nice sound. We have seen these flip before, so we keep our distance.

Ice cubes?!

The shoreline. It drops sheer into water sometimes over 1000 feet deep.

Beautiful waterfalls flow from the tall mountains.

Wildflowers bloom on barely any dirt on the granite.

If you get close and are quiet, you can find birds hopping around the barnacles. The top one is a varied thrush.

Dark-eyed Junco.

When we got back to Dog Star, there were some small Brown Bears on shore! A delight to see! They look to be maybe 3 years old--first summer kicked out of Mom's den. They stayed out and we watched them for hours from Dog Star.

These are Black Oystercatchers, one of my favorite birds because they are so comical looking.

Pacific Loon.

Eagles munching on a dead fish. There were 2-3 more out of the range of the photo, hanging out for their turn at the dinner table. See the juvenile eagle, to the right of the two adults eating?

We picked up some Ice Age glacier ice for cocktails.

Delicious Negroni, and very cold!

Dog Star at anchor in Tracy Arm Cove.

A rare treat to see the moon! Around 10:30 pm. Tomorrow we head up Endicott Arm!