First Trip into Icy Bay: Tiger Glacier and Chenega Glacier

 

Kayking in Nassau Fjord in Prince William Sound. This scene reminded me of my time in Antarctica.

In the southwest corner of Prince William Sound, Alaska, there is a place called Icy Bay. It was first explored by Joseph Whidby in 1794 and named by George Vancouver. Tiger glacier is at the end of the southern finger and Chenega glacier dominates the northern finger. Chenega Glacier is the second largest glacier in Prince William Sound, draining most of the Sargent Icefield.

We spent the morning exploring Tiger Glacier by small boats called skiffs. We had fun exploring the waterfall-filled cliffs on the way up the fjord. Then we were surprised to find that the ocean in front of the glacier was frozen. There was sea ice packed from one side of the fjord to the other, making it impossible for us to get within a mile of the glacier. The scenery was still beautiful and lots of harbor seals were up on the sea ice with their pups. We did come across some sea otters and a flock of Barrow's goldeneyes, a beautiful species of waterfowl, on the way back to the boat.

In the afternoon I took out a small group of adventurous sea kayakers in Nassau Fjord. We dodged icebergs on our way to the face of the massive Chenega Glacier. It was a wonderful experience to hear the creaks and groans and thunderous roars from the glacier. Especially when giant chunks of ice would calve off the face and crash down into the water below. It sent waves our way but they were just gentle rollers under our kayaks because the water was so deep. After a long time enjoying the glacier we paddled back along the cliffs, searching all the nooks and crannies along the way.

The entire day I kept looking for other boats, figuring this place can't be this big of a secret. But it seems that it is off the beaten path enough, and still early enough in the season here, where we had the entirety of Icy Bay to ourselves. It was like someone flooded Yosemite with the ocean, turned a zillion snowflakes into a giant wall of ice, dropped in a thousand unique ice carvings, and threw in some thousand foot waterfalls... just for us.

Chenega Glacier was calving pieces of ice like this one as we explored by kayak.

The rain came and went during our time in Icy Bay, but this scene could not have gotten any more beautiful. This is a shallow cut between the mainland a small island, just big enough to squeeze our skiffs through.

Tiger Glacier, keeping us at a distance with a mile of sea ice in front of it, blocking our way. I tried to find an icebreaker ship nearby, because our pontoon skiffs were not putting a dent in that sea ice.

These chunks of sea ice had already broken free of the main pack. They were about 5 to 6 inches thick.

There is something about sea caves that just draws me in. This is my view looking out of one such cavern near Chenega Glacier.

Chenega glacier calving at the face.

This river was an far as we could get in the skiffs. We were surprised to see so much snow right down to the waters edge on June 1st.

Icebergs and waterfalls... Icy Bay provides.

It is so fun exploring a new place. I kept going around corners and finding scenes like this.

Chenega glacier, and it was only our small group.