Capturing the Moment

  I love kayaking here in Alaska, and especially when we can kayak around ice. This day was especially good, with glassy calm conditions and a never-ending floating ice garden to explore. Discovering a new place to take our guests for adventures is always a good feeling. It is so nice having the flexibility as expedition leader, to search out these places and add them to future trips. Last week, we were iced out of our visit to Columbia Glacier, here in Prince William Sound, Alaska. So we instead went to a bay adjacent to Columbia fjord, in hopes that some of that ice would be there for us to walk around and paddle around. It was super low tide, so tons of big icebergs were trapped on the rocky shore, separating the bay from the fjord. I was excited to take people back, although this time I was prepare to explore by kayak. Only four people chose to come with me, but after this wild adventure, they all thought they chose correctly. We ended up paddling over 6 miles, way up a beautif...

  Endless ice formations. It is like nature's personal ice sculpture garden. Exploring ancient chunks of ice, once part of the giant Columbia Glacier, now stranded and slowly melting on this rocky moraine. Michelle, posing in front of our boat, while surrounded by beautiful natural works of art. Our boat, dwarfed by the towering ice. I climbed ontop of a stranded iceberg to get this angled shot of my group. Team extreme for our shorewalk among the ice garden. The tide was so low that we were finding sea stars and sunflower stars on our walk. Beautiful red version of a sunflower sea star. Michelle, using a beautiful ice sculpture as a temporary arm rest. Panorama of the ice-choked fjord leading to Columbia glacier. No boats are going to get through this for awhile. Our stranded ice sculptures all came from the Columbia glacier. This was my artsy shots from our walk. I shot this under and through an iceberg with a big arch in it, framing the ice beyond. There was all kinds of formati...

  There are so many beautiful glaciers here in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Many are high in the mountain valleys, hard to reach without some serious rock climbing ability. Others spill out of the mountains all the way down to the ocean. These are called tidewater glaciers, and are best explored by boat or kayak. There are a few, however, that allow a different kind of adventure. Meares Glacier is one of these. It is a tidewater glacier, but it is currently advancing through the rainforest on its sides, presenting a unique way to experience this glacier with a hike. There are certain parts of the glacier that you can actually walk up touch. It is a dynamic environment, always changing, so this adventure won't always be an option. But right now, it is an adventure not to be missed. We landed on a gently sloping rocky beach, perfect for a skiff beach landing. We crossed a small stream and entered the rainforest on a well-used bear path. We stopped for a few photo opportunities of th...