Porthole view of icebergs and icepack in the bay. We now know what it sounds like as ice slowly scrapes across the metal hull all through the night. We were awake more than we were asleep!

Sometimes an adventure is just too good for words. That about sums up our recent 3-week excursion to Alaska. Planes, boats, and trains (and a rental car) combined to help us find what we were looking for in a genuine travel adventure. Then a road/train trip from Anchorage north to Denali and south to Seward and then Whitney, where we boarded our little DISCOVERY vessel to spend a week searching out wildlife, glacier, and wilderness in the silent bays of Prince William Sound.

RETURN LINKS:
http://www.greatriver.com/waterwaycruises/ to return to our TRAVEL INSIGHT DIRECTORY
Return to the MISSISSIPPI RIVER HOME PAGE at http://www.greatriver.com
See our PHOTO ART homepage at http://www.greatriver.smugmug.com

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Discovery and Chenega Glacier with visible seals on ice (the little dark dots are harbor seals on the ice pack). The glacial faces we visited could be a mile high, more than a mile long. Capt. Dean pointed out that movement of the glaciars was quite dinamic... from year to year, this glacier might move forward and backward over the long black bedrock to the left of the picture.

Capt. Dean at bow near Chenega. He always kept us well informed about the natural history of all we saw. He is wearing the ever-present Alaskan mudboots.

Calving glaciers created deep booms which we heard after we saw the great crash of an ice wall.

Just another August day on the beach for these harbor seals

Avalanches of falling snow were another sign of the slow and steady movement of these glaciers. Avalanches looked in every way like water flowing down the face of a canyon.

Almost daily, we 14 travelers had the opportunity to go ashore and explore the area upclose and personal. We often saw bears on these excursions. Getting this close to a glacier face helped us grasp how massive the faces were.

Porthole view of icebergs and icepack in the bay. We now know what it sounds like as ice slowly scrapes across the metal hull all through the night. We were awake more than we were asleep!

These otter are survivors or descendants of sea otters threatened during the Exon Valdez Oil Spill. Though there seemed to be a great number on our "sea otter day" we did not see them anywhere else.

reflections at Nellie Juan. The thing is, Prince William sound was not all glacial faces! Often bays were sunny, pleasantly cool, and perfectly still. Then we brought out the Kayaks and, always, the cameras!

Porthole view of icebergs and icepack in the bay. We now know what it sounds like as ice slowly scrapes across the metal hull all through the night. We were awake more than we were asleep!

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