We awoke this morning far up in Glacier Bay, just one-quarter mile from Margerie and Grand Pacific glaciers. Everything near a glacier is different: rock fjord walls are scraped smooth, vegetation is sparse, ice chunks drift in milky, pale green water.
After breakfast we were in another fjord called Johns Hopkins Inlet, where we had this view. Small specks on the larger ice chunks are harbor seals. Park biologists doing a census called us on the radio and reported 1,800 animals today. At the peak of pupping season there can be over 5,000 seals hauled out in front of this one glacier. The scale here is mind-boggling, the images stunning.
