Paddle

Once each summer as a seasonal park ranger interpreter in Glacier Bay National Park we could combine two consecutive three day weekends for six days off in a row. Ten hour long shifts and exhausting schedules left you pretty tired and deservant of three days off each week. Three day weekends came in pretty handy in a park so large it often took either most of a day to get out into the back country or the 60 air miles into the nearest city, Juneau.

Either my name's alphabetical place towards the end of the alphabet, or my boss's knowledge I grew up in a city famous for foggy cold summers led him to schedule my six days off very late in summer. Late in the Glacier Bay summer, the weather has usually deteriorated and is on the way to absolutely terrible. The closer you get to October, the closer you get to the most seriously wet weather all year in country that is famous for rain!

At the end of my third summer's end back country excursion in drenching rain I mentioned to my supervisor that I would be very interested in my turn at an early summer trip in what would hopefully be better weather the following summer.

My boss really took that comment to heart, because the very first thing the next June I saw six consecutive days off on my schedule! It was unheard of! I had always wanted to paddle a kayak with someone the entire fifty mile length of the bay, from the forested ranger station where we lived to the iceberg filled inlets and glaciers. I was absolutely thrilled except for a few small details ...

At the beginning of a Glacier Bay summer, all of the seasonal employees are getting ready for very busy times ahead. The park interpreters are assembling slide programs and walks, talks and boat tours. Many of them are brand new to the park and are reasonably intimidated by the great volume of information they need to digest to properly tell the park's story. Law enforcement rangers are busy readying boats and back country living quarters as well as brushing up on rule enforcement techniques. Seasonals are adjusting to a sixty mile by air from the nearest city lifestyle and permanent employees are busy adjusting to the onslaught of seasonals and the reason they are all there: the onslaught of the one intense three month period each year called the "visitor season."

As a result, while it is wonderful to have six days off at such a time, it is very unique, and I found myself to be very alone! That wouldn't have normally been a huge problem: While I enjoyed traveling in the back country of Glacier Bay with friends, I had done several shorter solo backpacking and kayaking trips before. This spring was unique in though in a way that made solo back country travel a little spooky. At the end of the summer of 1980, a solo kayaker had left Bartlett Cove on his way up bay. Several days later some other campers reported finding his partially consumed remains in his camp and reported very aggressive black bears in the area. Park rangers had gone into the camp and killed one of the bears as it threatened them, but the remaining bear had escaped. It was possible that a bear was emerging from a long hungry winter up bay, having gone to its winter on a full stomach of kayaker!

It was a tough decision to stick with my plan of kayaking by myself to Muir Glacier that June! I was amazed reading my journal from the trip that I had left out two of the most vivid memories, which occurred right at the start, so I'll start by recounting them.

One was the very early start. The tides in Glacier Bay are enormous and often dictate departure and arrival times often, because plus or minus twenty five feet of water can make a big difference. Up bay kayak trips from Bartlett Cove often begin with a journey through a maze of small forested islands called the Beardslees. The most direct route through them is a narrow channel that goes nearly dry at low tide and can be a raging torrent of a river as the tide is flooding or ebbing. Wise timing dictates riding the last bit of the flood up through the "cut" so there is plenty of water, and while it is not moving fast, it is still moving in the direction you want it to go: "up" bay!

Lots of water was an important consideration for me especially on this trip: several days of groceries can make a kayak so heavy that portaging around dry spots is a chore, and I was traveling in an especially frail boat called the "duck." The Duck was an old Folbot, a rubber and canvas covered wood framed large kayak that already depended too heavily on duct tape for water tightness. Timing was critical for safety and unfortunately the high tide the morning of my departure was about 3 A.M. That meant in order to take advantage of my whole six days I needed to get up around 2 A.M.!

That part actually went pretty well. I am a morning person anyway and several summers (this was my fourth) of life in Glacier Bay had me used to odd hours: After all it is just beginning to get light again at 2 in June! I was up and off on my adventure and paddling all the way through the Beardslees by about 10 when I stopped at Flapjack Island for lunch and a rest. After lunch a nap and a walk around the island, I felt really great. The weather was clearing the clouds away for a look at the Fairweather Mountains that surround Glacier Bay. So seldom seen, a glimpse at this gorgeous snow and glacier covered range is a confirmation that you have picked the right time to visit this very special place on earth. I should have satisfied myself with the sight!

Looking north at the beckoning upper bay I could see Leland Island, barely four miles away. Not only would it be a significant head start on an up bay trip, it is more than a mile from the nearest shore and surrounded by very deep water. It was very unlikely a bear would be on that island, especially this time of year. The memory of the man-eating-bear from last summer possibly still wandering around was reinforced by the fresh bear sign all over the Beardslees. The Beardslees are bear heaven, as nearly accessible to bears as the shoreline and separated only by very short stretches of shallow water!

I got back in the kayak and set off for my first campsite of the trip on Leland Island. The first thing I noticed as I pulled away from Flapjack was the openness of the bay and the choppy swell of the water for the first time all day. Rather than the protection offered by the surrounding low islands, I was actually able to look about twenty miles up towards Tlingit Point at the the entrance of Muir Inlet and about fifty miles up bay towards Russell Island in Tarr Inlet. Deep water combined with northerly winds to start the paddle off on a challenging note. I took comfort in heading into the wind as it is easier to keep steerage into the wind than across or even ahead of it. I would go a little slower, but I would maintain my course dependably!

The farther I got away from Flapjack Island the harder the wind blew. Each paddle stroke further committed me to the northerly course, because turning around in strong wind can be disastrous. While the duck was a very stable boat, it could be made to roll and I was never able to perform the Eskimo roll, in which a capsized kayak could be righted. The duck was too big to Eskimo roll anyway and like most of the other touring kayakers in Glacier Bay I never counted on the day my boat would roll over: I just avoided dangerous situations and tried to be careful.

My "level of care" was getting more intense with each stroke. Waves were now breaking over the bow of the boat and while not coming over the combing into my seat yet, I struggled to snap the spray skirt around me before they did. I was really starting to consider the dangerous turn back to Flapjack Island when I began having problems with steering. I managed to look back between paddle strokes and could see my rudder was dangling off to one side in a sickening angle and no longer responded to the foot controls I had rigged up for it. I couldn't tell what was wrong but now when I needed the rudder the most, it had failed.

We had just added the rudder recently. Like many kayaks, the Folbot has an optional rudder and now I was back to the "option free" version and depended completely on my arms to steer the boat. That would have been fine if I weren't out in small craft warning conditions. The wind was much higher than the fifteen knots it takes to make whitecaps. Waves were breaking over the spray skirt regularly now and I was as dependent on the top skin of the boat as well as the fabric hull to stay afloat in very cold, thirty five degree, very deep, hundreds of feet, water, over a mile from shore.

The shore beckoned: Beartrack Cove to the rear right with obvious bear implications, Sandy Cove up ahead to the right where the kayaker had been eaten last summer, Flapjack Island to the rear involving the sickening thought of turning completely around in these worsening seas, or Leland Island straight ahead, now about two miles away. I was about halfway there and decided my best option was to muscle it out and pull for the island. I couldn't afford to rest for even one paddle stroke as the wind was coming slightly off my left side and threatened to turn me around which would mean certain capsizing in the five to seven foot choppy swells.

I began to feel desparately hungry and thirsty having been at this continuously for over an hour so far. I reached through the spray skirt into my food bag and grabbed an orange and some energy bars. The bars were relatively easy to consume after tearing off the packages with my teeth. I have never eaten an orange like an apple before or since, but all I could manage time for were apple like bites and peeling the bites individually in my mouth. I really needed that orange. My arms were aching, especially my right forearm, but the juicy orange's sugary energy kicked in and in another hour of painfully slow progress, I approached the island.

Luckily it was low tide as I got close and the shallow beach on that side saved me about a quarter mile of paddling when I needed a break the most. As the boat glided to a stop on the gratefully gravelly beach I was finally in the lee of the island and the biggest wave of tired relief swept over me I can ever remember. I fell asleep on the beach almost immediately right next to the boat. It was about noon.

I remember waking up soaked. The rising tide had soaked me and my food bag. The boat was floating again, and I struggled to pull it up the beach as far as I could, put the food bag in it, tie the bow line to my foot and lie down. I was exhausted and fell asleep immediately again. The tide and I played this cat and mouse game until about three o'clock, when I had the boat safely pulled above the reach of the tide and finally unloaded my gear and tent and set up camp.

The rudder post was shot, an aluminum victim of metal wear and fatigue. Where to get a replacement metal rod about 3/8 of an inch in diameter about a foot long in the middle of the wilderness? Walking around the island, beach combing, I found an empty wooden case that had washed up, that was my only hope. It was held together with baling wire, like a wooden bale of hay. After pulling out the staples I had a few feet of rusty, but workable steel wire. Cutting the wire into several lengths and experimenting with the number of strands and the amount of twist, I was able to make a replacement rudder post that served pretty well, for not only the rest of the trip, but a couple of summers after that!

My journal started that evening in camp on Leland Island. I've left it here just as I wrote it. I apologize for the abbreviations and cryptic notes and thoughts.

5 June 81 Leland Island, Glacier Bay

8:20 P.M. High cirrus and partly clear sky after northerly winds all day clearing previously rainy sky for a Fairweather afternoon. A tiring twelve mile paddle brings me here to this island with no fresh or any whatsoever bear sign. A beautiful sailboat shaped iceberg off North Marble Island is one clue to being up bay. Spokane Cove, etc., etc., Mt. Wright, close at hand--the excitement builds! I could get to Muir Glacier in two days at this rate (or Riggs in two, explore Muir the fourth, then camp at Mc Bride south, then paddle to Goose A.M. fifth (Tuesday) for a ride back to Barco. A high at 8:20 will make it real easy to get into Goose.

Bent rudder post--scrounged some wire off this island to replace--hope it holds. The original aluminum is metal fatigued, cracked and ready to split.

Today saw
black bear--Beardslees
Great Blue Heron--"
Bald Eagle
many Arctic Loons(b.p.)
6 Red Breasted Mergansers
Black Oystercatchers
Glaucous Winged Gulls
Mew Gulls
Bonaparte's Gulls
Arctic Terns
Common Loons 9

Saw live Bald Eagle at a distance on Spider Island spit. (re sick one reported 2 days ago.)

Geese apparently nesting on this island. Adults reluctant to fly away as I walked around island. 3?
Only other hassle--tide got in my tea--salt tea!

Three hours sleep last night--glad I brought the Guinness! (Sore arms especially right forearm.) Very long xing from Flapjack to Leland w/N wind. Stay close to shore tomorrow.

Saw the Pat, T.B. Exp and 1 plane today. No hard feelings. No roads.

Fairweathers out--no clouds west. Tent in forest on moss, food in alders 50' away. Bohn. ZZZZ. No bears please. Can sleep in but sunrise is at 5.

Sat. 6 June 7 am Overcast, bases of Fairweathers visible. 79 Oldsquaws make fine breakfast music. North!

6 Jun 81 9:35 pm
Beach 1/2 mi S of Forest Creek , Glacier Bay

Swainson's Thrush, Golden Crown Sparrow sing in the rain here. A long days paddle. Walked around Muir Pt - looked unsuccessfully for cabin site again about 2:00 pm.

Thunder Bay passes very close at Garforth Is. Had to ride out wake by bowing into it. Kris naturalist waves from inside in the sun.

saw 5 goats on Wright ~2500'

10 gulls in colony just N of hill 577 (red streaked cliff w/small waterfall S of Wright.)

Play G.C. Sparrow for Hayden. Beethoven bird?

7 Jun 81 6:30 am South wind all day yesterday - rain all night. Wind sure helped paddling but is this worth it? No booming spruce grouse here - I can finally sleep - no boom boom boom. I think I hear thunder - white thunder occasionally and distantly. Time to go for it. in the rain. 3 porpoise off Goose Cove today.

4 PM Nunatak Cove Arrived here, cold in the rain at 11:30. Thunder Bay and a fish boat, Terror Tramp? passed me just before Sealer's I. Ate lunch and finished breakfast tea and warmed up with a hike to the nearest interglacial stump. Wood is reddish in color, outside looks almost charred ("squared" texture).

Sore right arm. Guess I burned it out on the long crossing to Leland Island w/the N wind the first day. Sore ever since but yesterday was OK w/S wind. Today it hurts too much to paddle anymore. See what the morrow brings. Maybe this N wind will stop. Maybe the rain but I don't mind that - it's neat - I pitched the tent right and its (sic) drying out. Climb Nunatak?

Icebergs on the beach. Big crystals. Fox Sparrow stops feeding and flies off when I approach - most higher vertebrates (humpback whales too) will do that.
Grey Crowned Rosy Finches 2
Lots of moose sign in aldered glacial gravel terraces 200' above and on beach. No bear sign.

7 Jun 81 Nunatak Cove 8:30 pm Finally stopped raining. Walked to creek got H20. No bear sign. Semipalmated Plover nest - depression in gravel. 2 Tan/Brown spotted pointed eggs ~ 1" long. Killdeer wing act by both parents. Ptarmigan Pturds here.

8 Jun 81 Riggs Glacier 12:50 pm.

Left this morning from Nunatak cove at 9:30. 3 hrs to here. Smooth flat water. 2 hrs to Muir?
Riggs calves mainly on land now. Meltwater stream moved over to right side of medial moraine - actually more along right lateral moraine.
Red Throated Loon. Herring Gull. Many Arctic Terns. Forgot to note Par. Jaeger yesterday at Forest Creek. Seal on iceberg 1/2 way from Mc Bride. Part. sunny, occasional sprinkles. Little south wind, water like glass in the lee of the mts.

[Here I drew a map with my paddle plan for the rest of the day]

1:00 Riggs
2 hr Muir
1 hr
2hr Riggs
2hr Mc Bride 8:00
Hi Tide 8:50
1 1/2 hr Mc Bride - N.C.

GO FOR IT! !!

Campsite, N. Side U. Muir Inlet
2:45 Only to our campsite at the first bend - this is taking twice as long as I planned. I can see the remnant ice on the west side of the glacier though and I'm going to be content with that. A good down bay wind is not worth fighting at this stage. Take me home sweet wind amidst icebergs, pup seals, gulls, eagles and the chance of a brown bear. It's great to be here on naked bare land tiny willows and moss. What a destiny for these gravelly flats.

7:40 Sailing, wind at my back towards Nunatak.

Got up on grounded medial moraine (terminal) of Mc Bride. Dozens of terns. Smells like dogshit in there for some reason.
Saw about dozen pup seals, est. 100 between Mc Bride + Big turn where I stopped in upper Muir.
Too much, wind, ice
Too many seal pups
Not enough time
Only the edge of Muir Glacier/Really only the edge of Glacier Bay
Reason to come back

8 Jun 81 N. Base of Nunatak 200' el
10:55 Sunset
Hermit Thrush sings me a farewell from Muir Inlet. Tomorrow morning it's a short paddle to Goose Cove then it's all over. I can't believe how fast these days have gone.
Fairly fresh bear (small brownie or black) tracks on beach. H.F. 2" shorter than my Xtra Tuf. That's why I'm up on this beautiful little knoll with willows and cottonwood and alder all less than 3' tall and my mattress will be Dryas.

Golden Sunset. Why do I worry. It's too early in the year to be eaten. I will sleep out. Too clear and beautiful for the tent. N. wind all day.

Half Moon. 13' tides. Look for the oystercatchers in the shot looking south.
Maggie soon!

Iceberg rolling over during dinner startled me. Sounded like a calving.
Princess Cruises in at ~9:30?
What is rock at Riggs?
Meta sedimentary w/intrusions?

9 Jun 81 7:35 Sun hit me ~ 15 minutes ago. Tea in a thermos the night before is a great idea. Sleeping out is too.
Muir Inlet - smooth and glassy at dawn is getting ripply as usual a few hours later. The icebergs are drifting down bay - the same way I go in an hour.
That Hermit Thrush sang me to sleep last night. This creek is the most musical I've heard. Still the sound of far off engines the entire trip. Probably an audio illusion.

Don't forget the Snow Bunting in Muir Inlet past Riggs, the porpoise at the spot I turned around, swimming towards Muir Glacier, or the new gull rookery 1/4 to 1/2 mile S from turn on W.T. Ridge.

Dryas blooms.

No bugs! (a few in Beardslees and a very few up bay)

Wilson's Warbler wakes me up.

----

My journal for this trip stopped there. I can't remember exactly what boat came to pick me and the Duck up for the ride home. The next entry is 13 Jun 81 at home after just finishing my first four days of work that summer

During mid August 1985, four years later, my brother Rich and I paddled a kayak one way the length of Glacier Bay on a six day trip. We had so much fun! The weather was great and we didn't have any bear problems!

Always inquire locally when traveling in bear inhabited back country and follow local regulations and responsible suggestions. Wear a life jacket or wet suit when paddling in cold, "blue" water.

With many thanks to the National Park Service in Bartlett Cove, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Gustavus, Alaska, for nine great summers.


© Mike Rivers, Waldport, Oregon 1998