JUNE 19, 2022 – PETERSBURG

Today we chartered a tour of the Le Conte Glacier, about 30 miles away from Petersburg. We packed a picnic lunch for the day, our rain gear (just in case), cameras and such, Captain Scotty picked us up at our boat at 10AM for our adventure. Scotty has lived here for most of his life, he came here when he was young to do commercial fishing and never left. His wife is the local radio personality, one of her many hats, including being an assistant at the health clinic. This particular glacier is moving at a rate of 100’ a day so the inlet is absolutely choked with ice. There was no way we’d get our boat near the glacier. Scotty had us in a 28’ Sven landing craft style boat, complete with a heater and port-a-potty. It was quite comfortable. Munson, a boat manufacturer in Burlington, uses the same design concept for their boats, the Sven and Munson very similar. The water across Frederick Sound was glassy smooth, and we finally got Scotty talking after a while, he was a bit quiet at first. He recently spent a week shuttling glacier scientists up to the Le Conte Glacier so they could study it. Apparently this glacier is more accessible (safely accessible) than the enormous glaciers in Greenland, so they take the data from their studies here and extrapolate for the glaciers in Greenland. We learned a lot from him. He told us that the part of glacier that we see above sea level goes 700’ below sea level, and rests on the bottom of the ocean. He told us that when a section no longer rests on the bottom then a “toe” might pop up from the deep, like a calving scenario from the submerged bottom of the glacier. This event is extremely dangerous because it’s like a giant submarine shooting to the surface and if you are in its path, you are toast! Of course we didn’t want to be part of that situation, but I intend to research this more, it was so fascinating! We sat in front of the glacier at the safe distance of ¼ mile away, although it did seem we were a lot closer than that. But Stephanie said, “if you’re going to die, die somewhere beautiful, I’m not worried!” Anyway, we ate our picnic and watched for calving for about an hour but the glacier wasn’t cooperating today. We saw small events of calving but nothing big. We made our way back out of the ice, Scotty was seemingly quite comfortable to drive up onto large ice chunks here and there, which meant the boat would list one way or another, but always protecting the engine of course! On the way up we were treated to a black bear sighting which was very picturesque as he was fishing in a waterfall close to the shore. We watched him for awhile until it was clear that we were bothering him. On the way back Scotty spied an eagle sitting on its nest not far up the cliff from us, that was really cool! The rain finally arrived during our last 30 minutes back to the boat and it continued on into the evening, but by then we were tucked away in the boat, warmed up by hot showers, and enjoying a glass of wine. A very fine day and we highly recommend Alaska Passages for the Le Conte glacier tour, it was well worth it!

Waterfall with 4000' drop

Skipper Scotty took us right to the edge of another waterfall

Choked with ice at the head of the inlet

And choked with ice behind us

Panorama shot

Some Beached Bergs

If you look closely at upper right there is eagle perched on the ice berg

This is a little seal pup whose Mom probably stashed him there for safety but this berg went aground then the tide went out so Mom can't reach the baby and baby is stuck till tide goes out, it was crying