Columbia Glacier & Heather Bay

Columbia Glacier and Heather Bay

1. July 10th, 9am- 6pm

2. Mostly overcast, some sun, humid, 50s- 60s

3. Prince William Sound, Tidewater Glacier, Rocky beach, Peat Bog, and Old Growth Rainforest

4. marbled murrelets, sea lions, gulls, puffins, sea otters, barnacles, geese, shrimp, muscles, snails, arctic tern, limpets, mudfish (blenny), clam, tube worm or clam holes, mosquitoes and no-see-ums, kitiwakes, large black spider, jelly fish, duck with ducklings, robin, loon, pink salmon, and bear scat

5. Sitka Spruce, including a wee little one, black salt-tolerant lichen, sea lettuce, rockweed, algae, beach greens, dwarf fireweed, mosses, including reproducing parts, alpine willow, beach grass, orange lichen, peat moss, shooting star, butter cups, dwarf dogwood, bog blueberry, marsh marigold, crowberry, skunk cabbage, purple aster, starflower, columbine, violets, juniper, caribou lichen, sun dews (which are carnivorous!), bog bean, lily pads, hanging lichen, regular and dwarf blueberries, cladonia (a gorgeous red lichen), mountain heather, huckleberry, mushrooms, including shelf fungus

What an amazing day we had! We saw so much and so many different ecosystems in such a short amount of time. The peat bog and old growth rain forest were definitely unlike anything I had ever seen before. They were well worth the mosquitoes, and I actually wish we'd had more time to explore them slowly. We set out on the Kimberlain's Cat, which took us out of the Valdez arm into Glacier Bay, near the Columbia Glacier. We disembarked on a rocky beach, which we learned was the terminal moraine of the Columbia Glacier. We saw where the glacier came down to the sea on two sections, depositing rocks and debris at the terminal moraine. We also saw the stripes on the edges of the glacier and in the mid-stream of it, which are the lateral and medial moraines. These are formed by the scraping of rock and debris from the channel from whence the glaciers flowed, the medial moraines being where different channels met.

We explored the Intertidal zone at low tide, searching the tide pools and grounded icebergs, some as large as a bus. What at first seemed just a rocky beach revealed itself as teeming with life.

The rocky beach on which we lunched was picturesque and had a lovely brook babbling down it from the peat bog. There was a waterfall nearby that provided us with some dining music. There were birds and even a sea otter to watch while we ate.

The Peat Bog was squishy and full of fascinating plants wherever we looked. They were all in full bloom and doing their reproductive thing. It was hard to imagine the place in the dead of winter.

The Old Growth Rain Forest was really amazing. It contained so many plants and lichens and mosses and mosquitoes. It seemed that the whole thing was built up of layer upon layer of trees that had died, decomposed, and provided nutrients and haven for new plants and trees, etc. etc. What a rare opportunity to explore a gem of an ecosystem!