Glacier Trifecta

Meares Glacier, Valdez, Alaska.

Day 44.

7,065km travelled.

Today will likely go down as one of the best days of our trip.

Giant glaciers, rafts of floating sea otters, and a few precious moments spent watching a mother humpback and her calf leap for joy out of the sea. Pure nature.

But first, let me back track to where we last left off.

Week 6: Yukon River

After two days of never-ending sunlight and solstice celebrations, we were invited to paddle a short stretch of the Yukon River with a few friends from the bush rave we'd attended. Running a little over 3,000km long, the Yukon River starts just before Whitehorse, twisting and turning its way through the province and across Alaska to the Bering Sea. We paddled a measly 25km of it.

A wider river than anything I'd paddled before, the section we explored felt more like a casual float than anything adventurous or daring, but no less stunning. We spent the afternoon meandering, spotting bears, and getting to know our fellow crew mates, stopping along the shoreline numerous times to stretch our legs. We couldn't have asked for a more relaxing, peaceful close to our time in Whitehorse, and to the company of our newfound friends.

Alaska Highway

Heading northwest via Highway 1 the next morning, Tom and I backtracked to Haines Junction and Kluane National Park. This time, though, we took the west side of the lake along the main highway as we made our way into Alaska proper, the mainland this time, not the small sliver of Skagway and Haines hugged on all sides by Canada.

After a very windy night camped beside Kluane, we made a big push in Envy across the border to Tok, then turned south, continuing on Highway 1 down towards Valdez.

This stretch of the Alaska Highway puts the shabby section of the Duffey Lake Road to shame. I swear Envy was airborne, all four tires off the ground, more than once. That said, she fared far better than the bus-sized RVs we passed. Winter clearly ravages the roads up north, and this stretch has been hit hard.

Side note: did you know chopped wood gets confiscated at the border? We were surprised, to say the least, to have our wood bag emptied at the crossing into Skagway. I guess Americans consider Canadian trees disease-ridden, but isn't Skagway landlocked by Canada? I didn't realize bugs respected borders. We were only caught out once a few weeks back, so by the time we reached the border near Tok, we were ready. Log hogs no more. Of course, this time, the border patrol couldn’t have cared less what we were carrying. Consistency at its best, eh America?

As you head down the 1, Mount Sanford comes into view on your left, at the edge of the Wrangell Mountains. Sitting at 16,237ft, this mammoth of white towers above everything else. It took us a moment to realize we were looking at a snow-covered peak and not just a gathering of clouds. Even from a distance, you can tell the mountain touches the heavens. A few oohs and ahhs were had.

McCarthy

The small settlement of McCarthy came recommended by a couple we met in a pub in Skagway, on account of its proximity to Root Glacier, which they swore was worth the detour. Veering off Highway 1, you travel down a bumpy dirt road for 100km until you arrive at what I can only describe as the middle of nowhere. McCarthy is a strange, slightly derelict hippie town that caters to glacier-seeking tourists and copper mine enthusiasts in equal measure.

In classic Sobieniak fashion, we decided to pedal our bikes the 10+ miles to the base of the glacier rather than cough up the $5 for the shuttle. My father would be proud. And the bonus of pedalling after 6pm is that we had the glacier entirely to ourselves. Unlike Salmon Glacier near Stewart, Root Glacier is easily accessible by foot, so we ventured out onto the ice. Tom pedalled his bike onto the glacier. As you do.

We earned our beers at the local pub, The Potato, after riding back into town well after everyone else had finished their tourist rounds for the day. Even hundreds of kilometres from any major town, The Potato had the longest beer list I've seen in a restaurant in some time. Our server told us a truckload of cans makes its way out to McCarthy every week. And in true Alaskan fashion, the locals had driven to the pub on quad bikes, dogs roamed off-leash inside the restaurant, and our server looked exactly like the cliché lumberjack: work overalls, long beard, cap pulled low. If you ever find yourself in this tiny corner of the world, I highly recommend the carrot cake, but make sure you order two spoons.

The next day, we decided to venture up Tiger Mine Road, an old, somewhat abandoned logging route. Just as we'd aired down and hidden the bikes behind some trees, we rounded the first corner of the fsr and I let out an unintentional gasp that had Tom slamming on the brakes. A huge grizzly stood just a  ways up the road, already on his hind legs, curious about Envy. After a moment of, you guessed it, more oohs and ahhs, we made our way up the rough track. I drove, letting off periodic honks to scare Winne, as Tom spent most of the journey cutting down branches so Envy could squeeze her way through. After three hours, we eventually turned around once it grew too narrow to continue. What does offroading teach you? It’s about the journey, kids, not the destination. 

We met some hunters at the bottom who were keen to hear we'd spotted a bear. Little did they know we'd honked our way up the entire mountain and likely ruined their chances at the large, beautiful animal we'd seen. Tough luck, suckers.

Week 7 Valdez

The town of Valdez is what I imagine a classic Alaskan fishing town to be: quaint, drizzly, muggy, and exceptionally pleasant. From Whitehorse to here, we'd covered a lot of ground and done a lot of driving, so we decided to climb out of Envy for a couple of days and do some proper touristing. And naturally, if you find yourself by the ocean, you should probably get on it. 

At this point, we hadn't showered in a week. The baby wipes had long stopped cutting it. So we treated ourselves to two nights at an RV park with hot showers, reminding myself what it feels like to be a functioning human again. 

We met a very enthusiastic local at Glacier Lake who rented us a double kayak to paddle up to Valdez Glacier. Only reachable by water, the glacier sits at one end of the lake, past a labyrinth of floating ice you have to thread through before reaching open water and the glacier's foot. Kayaking through silt-blue water, bumping past floating ice the size of school buses and small buildings, I felt a flicker of fear. The man who rented us the kayaks had warned us the ice can roll without notice, and as everyone knows, what you see above the surface is only a fraction of what's actually there. Floating among these rejected giants was equal parts thrilling and unsettling. Naturally, Tom was loving it. 

The glacier itself is a sight to behold, and seeing it from the water made it all the more striking. Rising about three stories out of the lake, the blue ice curves, shifts, cracks, and crumbles in the most beautiful patterns of texture and colour. We floated along the edge for half an hour before turning back and navigating our way through the maze to shore.

Meares Glacier

Our second day on the water was spent aboard a small tourist boat, the Stan Stephens cruise, heading up Prince William Sound to Meares Glacier. Tucked away up a narrow inlet, Meares stands roughly 200ft tall and spans at least half a mile in width, (yes, I’m speaking the local dialect now… you do the math) reaching from one side of the inlet to the other.

As we drew closer, ice that had already calved could be seen drifting in the water. The closer we got, the thicker it became, until we were pushing through at a snail's pace, all the way to a clear patch half a mile from the glacier face.

I can't fully describe how impressive this glacier is. Immense, towering, textured, monstrous. A giant blue wall of ice looming over everything, cracking and creaking as it pushes into the forest on either side, tipping over trees in its wake. The jaws of some great beast, ready to swallow the world whole. There's something humbling about sitting at the foot of something that old and that forceful. You stop talking. You just look.

On the way up, we spotted a pair of sleeping humpbacks, a mother and her calf, and watched them take slow, periodic breaths in their sleep before moving on. By the time we made our way back down the coast, the two had woken and decided to put on a show for us. Breaching, flapping their fins, leaping clear out of the water, twisting and turning in what I can only call pure, unabashed joy: a proud mother and her curious young one. Just minutes earlier, Tom had said that seeing a breaching whale would be a one in a million chance. We had no idea we were about to become the exception. Though I’m sure the locals see this all the time, we felt very lucky to experience such a precious moment in nature. 

Valdez, and everything around it, feels alive. Towering fields of ice, bergs drifting through the sound, whales at play in frigid waters, it's a place that feels far removed from anything else, and somehow all the more vibrant for it. As our first real stop in Alaska, I'm sure this impression will shift and deepen the further we go. But I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful, or more natural, introduction.