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Glacier Bay National Park – Witnessing change

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(Glacier Bay slide show – Adobe Flash required)

Change — Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in southeast Alaska has been described as a park undergoing change; rapid and profound change at that. While taking a break during a recent kayaking trip in a remote section of the park, I looked out on the fjord landscape and tried to imagine the spot where I was sitting on the water covered by hundreds of feet of glacial ice. Now the tidewater glacier that I photographed is far in the distance, having retreated almost three and a half miles. An the process of calving icebergs the size of school buses continued as I watched one of floating by to eventually melt in the ocean.

As recent as 250 years ago there was no Glacier Bay. Instead, today’s bay and inlets were completely covered with a massive glacier thousands of feet thick and approximately 100 miles long.

Changes in the parks glaciers affect the entire ecosystem of the park. From under the sea to the physical land itself, islands within Glacier Bay are rising at a rate of one inch a year due to the release of the weight of the glaciers that once covered them. The effect is called “glacier rebound” and is a source of navigational problems for kayakers like myself who now find ocean passages between islands shown on government topographical maps are no longer passable. Talk about dynamic change!

Glacier Bay National Park is known for its spectacular glaciers, ice fields, and the tall coastal mountains of the Fairweather Range. The park is also an important wilderness area both in and out of the water. Glacier Bay is home to humpback whales which feed in the park’s protected waters during the summer, both black and grizzly bears, moose, wolves, sea otters, harbor seals, steller sea lions and numerous species of sea birds. The park, known for its large, contiguous, intact ecosystems, is a United Nations biosphere reserve and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Most people see only a portion of Glacier Bay National Park from the deck of a cruise ship. I however, wanted to explore it’s inner, more remote areas closer and more intimately from a sea kayak. On this trip, I enlisted my wife Carol to accompany me. When it comes to the unpredictable sea in an area known for foul weather, there is safety in numbers. We saw few humans for much of the trip.

Our only safety net was a portable VHF marine radio, whose reception and transmission with others was mostly limited to only the rare passing boat or kayaker. The immense coastal mountains of the park precluded reaching the coast guard in distant Juneau or even, the park’s headquarters. On the few times we could receive the barely audible static-ridden weather report from the main park ranger station, the forecast focused on how high the seas would be, instead of the chance of precipitation — a telling sign. Luckily, for us, the normally rainy park was bathed in glorious sunshine with reasonable wind for much of the time.

Our journey lasted for 14 days consisting of wilderness kayaking and camping divided into two general areas of the park, the Beardslee Islands and the Muir Inlet (also known as the East Arm). By the time the trip was over, we will have logged over 114 miles of kayaking (we logged 25 miles on our longest day).

Preparing for a trip like this is never a simple matter, nor is getting to Glacier Bay. Logistics include mailing food, supplies and equipment, loading the GPS with possible camping spots, sources of water, etc. and planning the trip around ocean tides. Attention to tides is critical in this area of the world where they can vary by as much as 25 feet in six hours. The tides control when and where you can travel.

Getting to Glacier Bay is no small feat and probably accounts for the reason most people see the park from a cruise ship. The park and the nearby tiny town of Gustavus are off the road grid. On a previous trip to Glacier Bay we flew to the park from Juneau. This time we decided to try the newly scheduled twice weekly ferry from Juneau aboard the Alaska Marine Highway System ferry, the M/V LeConte. The four and a half hour trip from Juneau was spectacular in terms of scenery with the added bonus of the ferry’s captain stopping for several minutes to watch a group of humpback whales bubble-net feeding near the ship. Finally, after three days of traveling since we left St. Louis, Missouri, we had arrived at the park.

After filling our mandatory bear resistant food containers, we loaded our rented kayaks with the food and gear we sent by the U. S. Postal Service. Next we went about obtaining our mandatory backcountry safety and regulation training from the park’s rangers; we were now ready. We had to wait until early evening to set off on our paddle because we needed a high tide to clear the passage from Bartlett Cove (Park Headquarters) into the Beardslee Islands. During our stay in the Beardslee’s we camped on Kidney Island and Young Island. After what we called our “shakedown trip” in the Beardslee Islands we headed out to Muir Inlet by way of the daily tour boat, Baranof Wind, which dropped us and our kayaks off at Sebree Island at the mouth of the Muir Inlet. From there we would eventually visit deep into the Adams Inlet (a side inlet of Muir Inlet), and locations in the Muir Inlet such as Maquinna Cove, Klotz Hills, The Nunatak (a glaciated knob), McBride Glacier, Riggs Glacier, White Thunder Ridge, Wolf Point, Hunter Cove, Wachusett Inlet and Tlingit Point. During our few hours on the Baranof Wind we were treated to near perfect weather to view the Margerie and Grand Pacific Glaciers of the Tarr Inlet.

Since the majority of our traveling was on the water, instead of hiking on land, most of our wildlife sightings were related to the sea. We saw countless humpback whales in the Beardslee Islands, harbor seals, sea otters, steller sea lions, harbor porpoises, a few orcas and a wide variety of birds including puffins, bald eagles, black-legged kittiwakes, black oystercatchers, and gulls. On one the beaches in the Adams Inlet where we camped we saw wolf, moose, and grizzly bear prints in the mud of the low tide. This isn’t all that unusual when you consider that the beaches make for easy travel for these animals.

The humpback whales were easily our favorite, with their constant haunting conversation amongst themselves, tail and flipper slapping, and diving. While we didn’t have the type of encounter we had on a previous trip to Glacier Bay where a humpback whale surfaced right in front of Carol’s kayak where she and the whale looked into each other’s eyes, we easily saw many whales from our kayaks, and from our campsites, particularly from Young Island in the Beardslee Islands. (Special note: Anyone visiting the west end of Young Island must use extreme caution as that end of the island faces the Sitakaday Narrows, an area of Glacier Bay known for dangerous rip tides and currents.)

Another wildlife favorite, which we saw constantly during the entire trip, was harbor seals. They would continually “spy” on us only to duck under the water should we look their way. I think it became a game for both the seals and for us to see if we could spot each other.

Everyone asks me about bears on my Alaska trips. This trip wasn’t an exception. One of our few human encounters on the trip was with park rangers on patrol to warn us about an incident near the McBride Glacier where kayakers did not properly secure the lid to their bear resistant food container. A grizzly bear was spotted making off with the opened container and its contents, making that general area not a particularly smart area to camp. As mentioned earlier, beaches are a highway for bears and other animals for the ease of travel they afford. Plus Glacier Bay National Park is very close to Admiralty Island which has the highest density of grizzly bears in the world. These facts, and my sense of the nature of bear incidents in the park from talks with Glacier Bay’s park rangers at headquarters prior to leaving (a bear caused damage to a tent and kayak at Adams Inlet), told me we needed to set our bear awareness up a notch. We went out our way to eat and store our food a great distance from where we camped, sometimes even eating meals at a different location while on the way to where we would eventually camp for the night. We also made sure not to camp near streams which also serve as a wilderness highway and a prime source of salmon which the bears love to eat. While not having a nearby source of water at our campsites, it did afford some comfort that we would be less likely to be awakened by a bear in the middle of the night.

So back to the question, did we encounter bears? Well, sort of, at least one close enough for me. Carol and I were on the beach at Hunter Cove watching the sun set on distant Mount Wright and the other mountains above the Adams Inlet. It was past our bedtime (though only in terms of time on the clock – remember it seems like it stays light forever during the summer in Alaska). Carol decided to head back to the tent while I photographed the beauty of the moment. Being engrossed in what I was doing for quite some time I had not noticed that a large grizzly had joined me on the beach (probably only 25 yards away). I noticed the bear when I went to grab a graduated filter out of my backpack. Luckily, the bear seemed uninterested in me and was more interested in possible sources of food in the tide pools caused by the low tide. I didn’t want the bear to get any ideas about me being a food source, so I quickly, carefully and quietly gathered up my equipment and headed down the beach to our tent without incident. It’s priceless experiences like these that make you realize what true wilderness is about.

My only real disappointment of the trip was that I had planned to do quite a bit of wildlife shooting from the kayak using my 600 mm lens. The actual use of the lens from the kayak wasn’t the problem but rather how I had planned to transport the lens. Unlike previous trips where I secured my telephoto lens in the kayak hatch, making it very difficult to access while on the water, I had devised a plan where I would keep the lens in between my legs in a specially made dry bag. Access to the lens worked ok, but the size of the lens and just having the lens between my legs threw off my leg positioning in the kayak just enough to hurt my leg muscles. It wasn’t long before the lens went into the secured hatch area of the kayak.

Having to store the lens didn’t affect the success of the trip though. We saw some incredible sights. Instead of describing what we saw, I’ll let the photographs speak for themselves. Glacier Bay is simply a beautiful place. Where else can you watch the sun set from your wilderness camp and sip on a glass of wine cooled with ancient ice that you chipped off an iceberg?

More importantly, and interesting, where can you witness geological change firsthand — change that is normally measured in millennia?

To license image, click image. To see our collection of fine art prints, click here.

Seeing the Flint Hills tallgrass prairie in a different light

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I knew I wasn’t in Missouri anymore when I looked down at the feet of the two other men I was in line with me at the Pizza Hut in Council Grove, Kansas. Sure, all three of us had boots on. I had on what I thought until that moment were pretty manly backpacking boots. The other two gentlemen had me beat; dangling off their cowboy boots were spurs. Welcome to the world of real cowboys and cattle ranchers of the Flint Hills tallgrass prairie.

I returned to the Flint Hills region in June to see how the tallgrass prairie was regenerating itself. What was two months ago blackened scorched earth was now an ocean of prairie grasses swaying in the steady wind. Describing the prairie as ocean-like is probably an overused metaphor, but it is accurate. The never ending waves of blowing grass, reminds me of the ocean when sea kayaking in Alaska and Hawaii – an ocean that is always moving, never ending, as far as the eye can see.

The timing of my trip in early June was picked for what I believed would be maximum wildflower opportunities and to beat the hot weather of summer. Unfortunately, I was only right on one those points. On the day I arrived in the Flint Hills it was 104 degrees F. and would stay above 100 for most of the week I was there. It was a cooker. To keep expenses down I car camped at Council Grove Lake, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir on the Neosho River. Camping at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve is prohibited, though the preserve is open 24 hours (which, as you shall see, was important).

After only a quarter of a mile of hiking the next morning at the preserve that it was painfully clear that I was going to have to re-think my plans. The heat was just unbearable. Plans for carrying extra equipment to do HD video – scrapped. It’s enough that I carry 30-35 pounds worth of still camera equipment; there was no way I could carry more in the oppressive heat. Oh, and for those who haven’t ridden in my 1991 Honda Civic — I haven’t had working car air conditioning for 15 years.

When faced with an obstacle, I look for an opportunity. In this case, I decided if it was too hot during the day to shoot, how about shooting at night. That got me thinking about all kinds of possibilities — sunsets, twilight, and eventually star-filled skies. My days quickly became a split shift. I’d be up a little before sunrise to mine sunrise opportunities along the The Flint Hills National Scenic Byway (K-177). Head back for a nap and a swim at the lake, hike out on the prairie for several miles around sundown, then returning well after sunset. For part of the trip the moon didn’t set until after 2 a.m. This meant getting up again, every so quietly unlatching the giant squeaky swing gate of the now closed and sound asleep campground and driving the 25 miles or so to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve for shooting the Lower Fox Creek School under the stars.

Some nights afforded views of the stars, others not. There is relatively little light pollution from nearby cities (the only light coming from Emporia 25 miles away), making it possible to see deep into space and peer at the Milky Way. I found the starlight attempts tricky. The main trick is to get your exposure long enough to record as many of the starts without getting the movement. It’s a delicate balance between adjusting your shutter time and the ISO with your lens wide open.

The nights on the prairie were thankfully cool. On one late night/early morning, I swear every coyote in Chase County, must have been howling. What a hair-raising treat! I could just picture the coyotes and other nighttime critters wondering what this crazy person was doing out so late at night.

This was my routine for several days. Towards the end of my trip, the temperature forecast looked like it was going to be more reasonable so I decided to hike the relatively new Bottomland Trail and Fox Creek Trail (approximately 7 miles round trip) that traverses the lowland prairie along Fox Creek. One of my goals for the hike was to climb a high hill that would afford (or at least what I had hoped) a view of the historic Spring Creek mansion and it’s massive barn with a vista of the prairie in the background. Unfortunately, trees obscured most of the home, meaning I’ll need to attempt the shot in the early spring before the trees surrounding the home are leafed out.

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This wasn’t the only reason for hiking these trails. The area along Fox Creek encompasses rare lowland prairie — rare because most lowland prairies have been lost to farming. The National Park Service is in the process of restoring this lowland from crops and cool season grasses planted by farmers as hay to true (warm season) prairie grasses. The restoration will be a process could take decades — a process that will involve invasive plant removal, burning, and reseeding.

I look forward to the day when it’s fully restored. It’s hard to believe that less than four percent of the original 140 million acres of tallgrass prairie remains in North America. Most of the remaining tallgrass prairie is in the Flint Hills in Kansas.

ABOVE: Slideshows above require Adobe Flash.

To license image, click image. To see our collection of fine art prints, click here.

Fire – the life blood of the Flint Hills tallgrass prairie

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Unidentified participants at the

What have I gotten myself into? I’m laying down flat on my back in my tent, not because I’m sleeping but because the tent is literally being flattened nearly to my face by the fierce wind as it blasts incessantly across the tallgrass prairie in the Flint Hills of Kansas. I’ve been in high wind situations before, particularly in Alaska, but this time the wind felt different. It was enveloping, feeling like it was a living, breathing being. It was eerie being all alone with this wind creature as it howled through the night.

I was in the Flint Hills to photograph the springtime burning of the prairie. Specifically, I was camped at the Flying W Ranch in Chase County Kansas at what was described as the center of action for the Flying W’s “Flames in the Flint Hills,” an agritourism event. Visitors to the ranch can participate in the prescribed burning of the prairie. That event was 24 hours away, and given the wind and heavy rain; I was having doubts about it actually taking place as I slowly fell asleep.

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Cattle ranchers and land managers intentionally burn the prairie to mimic the natural wildfires caused by lightning strikes as a way to improve cattle forage. While the burning might appear on the surface to be destructive, fires cause the tallgrass prairie to regenerate itself. It serves as a way to manage vegetation, in particular weeds, woody vegetation, and invasive species while promoting new growth in the process. I was told that without this burning, the prairie would eventually end up looking like the forested hills of the Ozarks. That hasn’t happened in the Flint Hills. The soil in the Flint Hills is incredibly rocky and is the reason the land has never been turned into farmland for crops. That said, less than four percent of the original 140 million acres of tallgrass prairie remains in North America making it one of the most endangered ecosystems on the planet. Most of the remaining tallgrass prairie is in the Flint Hills in Kansas.

The prairie grassland is burned when the soil is moist but grasses are dry. This allows the deep roots of the grasses to survive and the burned grasses on the soil surface return as nutrients to the soil. These nutrients allow for the rapid growth of new grass. After approximately two weeks of burning, new grass emerges. The new grass is prized by cattle ranchers and their cattle; so rich in nutrients a steer can gain almost two pounds a day.

The controlled burning, or as some like to say prescribed burning, since any wildfire can’t be totally “controlled,” isn’t without controversy. Burning huge tracks of land creates huge plumes of smoke — smoke that can cause air quality problems in counties, and even states away. In particular, it is problematic for large cities like Kansas City and Wichita as the smoke adds to their already polluted air.

Another issue is that recent studies have shown that the intentional burning combined with widespread grazing has caused the populations of grassland birds to decrease substantially. Burning every spring eliminates the tallgrass that hides the nests of grassland birds, like the dickcissel, from egg-eating predators like raccoons.

For both issues, land managers are working with national and state government agencies to lessen the impact of burning. In the case of pollution, land mangers are burning pasture lands primarily in the spring, postponing other non-essential burning to other times of the year. To deal with the impact on wildlife, land managers and cattle ranchers are beginning to “patch burn” where one-third of their land is burned every year completing the cycle of burning all their land every three years. So far, the results appear to be promising.

The whole issue is a catch-22. If the prairie doesn’t burn (whether intentionally or naturally) the entire tallgrass prairie ecosystem will cease to exist.  The challenge appears to be getting the right balance in the frequency of burning.

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Morning greeted me with clear blue skies and bright sunshine. Having oversleep and missed sunrise by only minutes, I quickly made my way out into the dusty unmarked back roads of Chase County. The blackened earth and the smell of smoke make obvious the recent burn. It was also obvious that the prairie was rejuvenating itself and new grass shoots were popping up from the scorched earth. The prairie has been reborn.

The wind and the sun quickly dried off the grass and the planned burn at the Flying W Ranch went off as planned. Eager participants formed long lines across the prairie to light the grass with matches, once during the day, and once in the evening.

In both cases, the fire quickly started, and would race down the hillsides eventually dying out. The evening burn with its red line of flames signifying the leading edge of the fire reminded me of scenes of flowing lava from the Kilauea volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. To ensure that the fire stayed contained in the areas designated for burning, strips of grass were pre-burned and extinguished so the fire would stop upon reaching these areas that no longer had combustible material.

That was comforting to know as I lay in my tent tucked in my sleeping bag, looking out on the hillside next to me as the fire continued to crackle and burn.

ABOVE: Unidentified participants at the “Flames in the Flint Hills” observe the burning prairie at the Flying W Ranch near Clements, Kansas. This agritourism event allows ranch guests to take part in lighting the prescribed burns. Prairie grasses in the Kansas Flint Hills are intentionally burned by land mangers and cattle ranchers in the spring to prepare the land for cattle grazing and help maintain a healthy tallgrass prairie ecosystem. The burning is also an effective way of controlling invasive plants and trees. The prairie grassland is burned when the soil is moist but grasses are dry. This allows the deep roots of the grasses to survive and the burned grasses on the soil surface return as nutrients to the soil. These nutrients allow for the rapid growth of new grass. After approximately two weeks of burning, new grass emerges. Less than four percent of the original 140 million acres of tallgrass prairie remains in North America. Most of the remaining tallgrass prairie is in the Flint Hills in Kansas.

To license image, click image. To see our collection of fine art prints, click here.

Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve offers close-up look at a magnificent bird

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(Slideshow from Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve)

My recent trip to the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve near Haines, started out slow, taking a total of three days of travel by air and ferry. After overnight stops in Seattle and Juneau and a 4.5 hour trip on an Alaska Marine Highway Ferry ship, the M/V Malaspina, I finally reached Haines. It was long haul, but definitely worth the effort to see some of the most magnificent birds on the planet congregate in one spot.

As many as 2,000 to 3,500 bald eagles come to the area at the confluence of the Tsirku and Chilkat Rivers because of the availability of spawned-out salmon and open waters in late fall and winter. The open water is due to a deep accumulation of gravel and sand that acts as a large water reservoir whose temperature remains 10 to 20 degrees warmer than the surrounding water temperature. This warmer water seeps into the Chilkat River, keeping a five mile stretch of the river from freezing. In 1982, the 48,000 acre area was designated as the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve.

I was on the Chilkat River last year and  I would have to say the number of bald eagles was down. That’s not to say you still didn’t see dozens upon dozens of eagles roosting in large cottonwood trees that line the river’s bank and just as many on the river flats and gravel bars. My observations may be on target. Supposedly, a weak and later than normal salmon run affected the number of birds sighted. Similar situations along the coast of British Columbia and southeast Alaska were reported by the Vancouver Sun and Montreal Gazette in stories that say that bald eagles are searching for food elsewhere.

There were a couple of other factors that also influenced the number of eagles I saw this year. On one day, there were incredible winds blowing down the Chilkat River from nearby mountains and glaciers. The forecast that day called for winds of 30 miles per hour with sustained gusts of 55 miles per hour (unofficially, I would say the wind speeds were higher than the forecast). At times, the river valley looked like it was enveloped in fog, but in reality, the “fog” was blowing dust. Earlier, I posted one of my field report iPhone videos that shows the wind (link below). The eagles didn’t seem to appreciate the high winds and many left their Chilkat River roosts for more protected nearby valleys. I called it quits that day when I began to taste the dust in my mouth and headed back to the car having been outside for most of the day in the single-digit wind chill weather.

While all the wind and dust shooed off many of the bald eagles for a couple of days, there was a side benefit. I have always heard that during times of volcanic eruptions, sunrises and sunsets tend to be spectacular because of the dust they spew. Taking that into account, I made sure I was in position the following morning for what turned out to be a spectacular sunrise over the developing ice flows of the Chilkat River. Whether this sunrise was affected by the blowing dust, I don’t know, but the sunrise with the ice forming on the river was special.

Another factor that probably influenced the lower number of birds was on average warmer temperatures (highs in the mid to lower 30’s F). Normally, portions of the river will freeze forcing the bald eagles to concentrate even further. This year, there was only one day of real snow, and only one day of any sign of ice on the river, hence the eagles were more spread out.

The final factor that influenced my shooting was an unusually large number of fisherman from the Yukon. Because of the late salmon run, fisherman descended on the river during prime eagle viewing time. Their presence on the river flats would scatter the eagles, forcing me to discover new places to photograph the birds.  This turned out to be a good thing because I found several new spots equally as good, if not better.

There are a fair number of photographers on the river at this time of the year. Many are part of organized “photo tours” and I would go out of my way to avoid them. For most of the time on the river I was either by myself or perhaps with another photographer. Because the prime stretch of eagle viewing is about five miles long, getting away from the pack wasn’t a problem.

Early in the trip I took a side trip to the Chilkoot River near Chilkoot Lake. This is the area where last year l photographed the leucistic eagle with white wing tips and talons. This year the area was devoid of eagle activity. It was also hard to believe that only 3 months earlier the narrow Chilkoot River and the Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Site was jammed with dozens and dozens of fisherman and tourists along with — grizzly bears. In November, I was the sole person and virtually the only visible living being in the area. As for the leucistic bald eagle, I found out that it had been spotted on the Chilkoot River about a month before I had arrived this year but had since moved on.

Like the previous year, my days started in the field before sunrise which was at a reasonable time of 7:45 a.m.. I found that early mornings had the most activity, and the time between 11 a.m. and noon having the best light for photographing action. Normally, this wouldn’t be a good time for photography but keep in mind that the sun is very low on the horizon at this time of the year in Alaska. The sun being low on the horizon also means that sunset comes early, around 3:45 p.m. Actually it gets dark earlier because the sun falls behind the Takhinsha Mountains even sooner.

Finally, those of you who follow me on Facebook and Twitter, already know about the sad story of two cubs born this year who became orphans when their mother was illegally shot in the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve two days before I arrived. Over the course of my time on the Chilkat River, I would come across the cubs, playing with each other or catching a salmon for dinner. Alaska wildlife officials hoped that a zoo could be located to take the cubs, but that wasn’t to be the case. While it wouldn’t be impossible for them to survive the harsh Alaska winter the odds are against them. I’m particularly worried that they won’t know how to build a den to hibernate, or that a male grizzly will kill them. Hopefully, I’ll see them next November.

Coming later this week: A photographic look at the beauty of the Chilkat River valley.

ABOVE: Slideshow of images taken on my trip to the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve on the Chilkat River near Haines, Alaska. (Slideshow requires Adobe Flash).

To license image, click image. To see our collection of fine art prints, click here.

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