East Arm – Glacier Bay

We left the North Sandy Cove to explore the east arm of Glacier Bay. According to the park rangers very few people actually go up this arm. All the cruise ships and other guided services go up the west arm so by far more people see it. In addition, the National Parks Service has designated several areas in Glacier Bay as wilderness areas and only non-motorized vessels can enter. Some areas in the east arm are closed to motorized vessels at certain times because of breeding times for birds and other animals. Before leaving we verified with the rangers which areas were available for us to explore.

As we cruised up the west arm the first thing we noticed was the color of the water. It was a beautiful turquoise blue due to the melting glacial ice. Our destination was the Muir Inlet which is closed part of the year and open part of the year. There are three glaciers in the Muir Inlet. Quite a distance from the first glacier we began to notice ice in the water. As we got closer it became thicker until we found ourselves having to carefully pick our way through a dense line of bergy bits, which are ice bergs from the McBride Glacier. While most of them looked small, it was evident when you got up close that they were actually bigger than we thought. We had to be very careful that we didn’t damage our propeller or the hull of our boat.

As we drew closer to the McBride Glacier we saw large pieces of ice all over the shore. We could also make out people on the shore. There were several tents and it was apparent that it was a base camp for kayakers. This gave us some perspective about the size of the ice on the shore. Most of the ice was much bigger than the people we saw. It was evident that you could hike to the face of this tidewater glacier. We could not take our boat to the face of it because you had to enter a shallow inlet with a strong current in order to get there. We drifted close to the mouth of the inlet and allowed it to pull us in pretty far before moving on because it became very shallow.
Next we came to the Riggs Glacier, which is not a tidewater glacier, however there are places where you can anchor and hike to the glacier. There were several kayakers paddling around in the bay and other people on shore hiking in. We would have liked to have hiked to the glacier, but didn’t feel we had enough time to do that. We decided that was something we would do on a future visit.

The final glacier at the end of the inlet is the Muir Glacier. It is a receding glacier and no longer a reaches the water. It is also a glacier that you can hike in to. This entire inlet is a popular kayaking location, so we were careful not to make waves. On the way out we stopped in front of the Riggs Glacier so Don could take pictures of our boat. We also found a piece of glacier ice that we thought would be small enough to fit in the cooler. We’re hoping we can get it all the way home.

On the way back to Bartlett Cove we saw hundreds of sea otters floating in the water everywhere. We also cruised by the South Marble Island to see the Stellar Sea Lions and the birds. We photographed tufted puffins and white winged surf scooters. We saw whales and harbor seals. Glacier Bay is an amazingly beautiful place and the diversity of wildlife is incredible.