THE ALASKAN ADVENTURE Day 105 August 29, 2009 Salmon Glacier

The morning was very overcast so we took our time getting going and just relaxed for most of the morning. The sun came out around lunch so we packed up and headed out with our final destination being the Salmon Glacier.

Our first stop was the Fish Creek Viewing Area for a quick look. No bears. I wasn’t too disappointed yet as again I realized it wasn’t the right time. Also we would be stopping on our way back from the Glacier.

So away we went and a short time up the road we started to climb. It is 17 miles to the toe of the Glacier and 22.9 miles to the summit.

We have been privilege to a lot of pretty spectacular scenery over the past four months. I have used a whole spectrum of descriptive words in trying to portray what our eyes have seen. Today, however, we ran out of superlatives to try and describe what Mother Nature has created. The only way to try to describe the brilliance of her creation is to give it its own word. Specnomenal is our description which puts what we have seen at the top of the list. We thought the drive into Stewart was, as Ricky Donny would say, Awesome and today was more of the same. Only there was more and it was just a notch above.

We took a lot of pictures and I have posted a few but only by seeing it in person can you really grasp the brilliance. I encourage everyone to put the drive to Salmon Glacier on their bucket list. You will not be disappointed

Even with stopping to take a lot of pictures we finally reached the toe of the Glacier and followed it along for another 5.9 miles to the summit. It is the only glacier where we have been able to drive along side of it for its entirety. It is also the only glacier where we could actually see the summit without getting in an airplane. Pretty Specnomenal.

The Toe

The Middle

The turn to the Summit

The Summit

We enjoyed the view at the summit and even had our picture taken before moving along.

We found out that there was another glacier five miles up the road. On the next 5 miles we saw a lot of evidence of mining and a few closed up mine shafts, one of which was at the end of the road.

It was at this point that we could view the other glacier and we found out it’s name is Berendon Glacier. The main glacier is Berendon but there are actually three glaciers converging into one toe. I am not positive but I think their names are Frank Mackie and Le Duke. We keep getting different versions from different people.

We decided to head back as we wanted to stop at Fish Creek again and we knew the drive back would take just as long as it did coming up. The road conditions were not that great and at times we were down to one lane with a drop of about 2000 feet straight down.

We arrived at Fish Creek about 6:30PM and had been told that after 7PM was the best bear viewing time. Again no bears. However we decided to hang around for awhile hoping that one or two would appear. As I was standing there looking at all the people waiting and watching, I couldn’t help but wonder who the spectacle here was. Us or the bears.

We were getting ready to leave when we started chatting with a fellow from England. He and 11 other guys were on a round the world bike tour and they had been on the road for 3 months with one month to go. They had traveled 14000 miles to date and had another 6000 to go before they reached New York and flew home. It sounded like a heck of a trip.

Well, thankfully we ran into him because it delayed our leaving and low and behold Kathy spotted a bear just as we were about to go through the exit. So we hurried back down the platform and watched the bear Kathy first spotted and another one do a little fishing. We watched as they would pick out a fish and then chase it until it got away or they caught it. When they caught a fish they only ate the roe and left the rest for the scavengers.

I took a few pictures but my battery was low, probably from all the pictures on the drive to Salmon Glacier, and the quality wasn’t very good. Kathy did get some good video and one good picture.

We watched the bears for about 30 minutes and then it started to rain so we headed back to the campsite and called it a night.

It was a specnomenal day.