When we went whale watching last evening we had a fantastic time. We had multiple whale sightings--a family of Orcas and about 9 Humpback whales. It was particularly unique that both one of the Orcas and one of the Humpbacks breached (jumped completely out of the water)! The boat crew was very excited to see them breach. I guess that's an uncommon experience. We had a nice buffet dinner on board our whale watching ship.
This morning we pulled in to the small town of Skagway for our helicopter ride to the Mead Glacier. Duffy came with us later in the day on another helicopter trip I'll tell you about in a minute. Our morning trip to the glacier was awesome. We landed on a Morain ice field. It was not snow packed. It was an ice field strewn with crumbled rocks of all sizes and shapes! From the air, it looks like there are tire tracks down the middle of the glacier. Those are the rocks that are being ground up as the glacier retreats. The glacier we were on combined with another glacier up the valley and has created these "tire-like stripes" down the middle of the ice field. The tire stripes are the rocks You can even see "walking rocks". These are rocks/boulders of all sizes that absorb heat from the sun and melt more of the ice around them, but not directly under them. Eventually, the little column of ice they are sitting on collapses and the rocks roll across the ice where the process starts again. It takes 100 feet of compacted snow to make one foot of ice on a glacier. We were given boots that had crampons in them so when you walk they dig into the ice. A guide led us across the Morain and we were within a couple of feet of crevasses that went down 150' and more than 250' our guide said. He actually threw a couple of good size rocks down the crevasses and it took forever to hear them hit the other rocks and water below! I actually couldn't believe they let tourists get that close to these crevasses! We got some amazing photos! Bill was braver than I was walking close to the edge. They did give us walking sticks which were a great help navigating the ice field and the small streams of rocky water!!! I thought that was going to be the highlight of the trip until a little later this morning.
The next adventure was a helicopter ride to the top of a snow packed glacier where we visited a dog sled camp!! Duffy came with is on this one!
The camp is set up with tents for the dog owners and "mushers" who stay at this camp for the summer months. They get to come down by helicopter one day a week into town. Otherwise, they sleep and eat up there. The are about six "dog owners" and about 240 dogs all together. The Environmental Agency gives them a permit to do this but its strictly regulated! The largest area of concern is cleanliness, so they are constantly picking up after 240 dogs! Can you imagine?! The waste is flown back down by helicopter. Some people complain about picking up after one dog!!!
These dogs race in the winter time so this little bit of work for them is just a pleasant little summer time fun! They pull sleds out twice a day and can't wait for the experience!! In fact, as soon as you walk over to their area they start getting excited thinking they're going to get to go out! And then the barking and jumping starts!! Very few of the sled dogs look like an Alaskan Husky or a Malmute. They looking like athletic hound dogs! One little girl dog who pulled our sled was only 35 pounds and is nine years old. They say she LOVES to pull the sled and is one of the hardest workers. All the dogs trade places on the team. So there isn't just one lead dog. Almost all of them get a chance to be a "lead dog" at one time or another. In the winter when they are racing, they work 4-6 hours straight. They can do 100 miles in one day--50 miles and a rest--and then another 50 miles.
There were two litters of new pups-8 dogs in each litter. One group is 6 weeks old and one is 8 weeks old. The puppy Duffy and I are holding is named Axis and at 8 weeks you can tell he's going to be a big strong dog. They will start his training at around 6 months.
We had fun riding and driving the dog sled team! Well, we weren't really in control, but it was fun standing on the runners in the back as the dogs pulled the sled! Even Duffy had a go at it and had a ball!! All in all a great day!!! Weather was perfect--crisp, cold but sunny. Today was definitely a highlight of this trip! I was amazed that every glacier we've visited (the three glaciers we've visited in Alaska, the one in New Zealand and the one in Switzerland all seem so different !! They have similar characteristics, but each one has a definite "personality/flavor"! Our weather continues to hold today. We hope for good weather tomorrow because we're talking a float plane into the interior to see bears salmon fishing! At least, that's what we are hoping for!
