Making the cut

Our goal today was to go solo kayaking. We spent the rest of the day finding things to do while we waited for high tide. The best spot for kayaking near the visitor center is around the Beardsley Islands. However, the cut to get to the islands is only available by water when the tide is above 10 feet or 3 meters. High tide is 12 feet or 3.6 meters. The rest of the time, the cut is dry land. The back country rangers told us that we needed to be through the cut between 3 and 6 PM. Any other time we would need to portage our kayaks across land.

So we spent the day doing other things in the area. Greg went for his morning run and saw a couple of moose very close to our campground. He walked while they passed.

We found a hike through the forest. The hike had good reviews on AllTrails, but it a lot of roots and mud. It was an out and back hike, and after a mile we had seen enough and turned around.

Next, we visited the Tlingit Tribal House, Xynaa Shuká Hit, which is currently used as a meeting house. It was built in 2016 and is being used by four clans. It is inside Glacier Bay National Park and is covered under an agreement between the National Park Service and the local Tlingit tribe.

We got ourselves ready and at 3 PM, we launched the kayaks. The Beardsley Islands are beautiful and the water was calm. As we went out, we didn’t see any wildlife besides a few birds. After an hour we turned around. On the way back, Amy noticed a black bear colored rock. Then the rock started to move. She yelled out “bear”. At first, the bear just stayed there, continuing to eat. We gave it space and it decided to retreat into the forest. This trip through the islands was an amazing and we are glad that we were able to get there. We were the only people around. Very calm and serene.

We returned in time to catch a ranger talk about the geology of Glacier Bay. Ranger Deirdre talked about natural disasters in Glacier Bay. 60% of earthquakes in the US are recorded in Alaska. The second largest recorded earthquake was near here. Tsunamis are a threat as well, not just from earthquakes but also from landslides. The largest tsunami was in a cove that was caused by a landslide.

Originally, we planned to go on an organized kayaking trip so that we could learn where to go ourselves. Due to some scheduling issues, we were only able to get the kayaking tour tomorrow. We thought that they were going to lead us into the Beardsley Islands, like we did today. Oddly, the tour is scheduled tomorrow morning during low tide! We will have to wait until tomorrow to see how they work around the cut!

Bear count

Today: 1 black bear
Total: 8 bears