Puffin Bed and Breakfast Gustavus

... to Idaho Inlet. We sailed up the inlet, until dropping anchor near the river at the end which feeds into it. Although the wind kicked up, Kimber decided to lower the kayaks in the water and send us up the river to look for bears. We saw an enormous one just before we anchored. It was a brown bear (aka grizzly), that was grazing in the meadow. We hoped to see more after kayaking to a hiking spot.


Gustavus, Alaska, United States wnrdog

... one swimming right toward the bow of the boat about 50 feet away. It came up for air, showing its white underside, then dipped down, with his tall dorsal fin arcing from right to left to submersion. I've never seen one so close, except at Sea World. Not long after anchoring, I poked my head out of the dining area and saw Ida and Skylar ripping the legs off the live crabs. Later, I happily ripped the meat from those very legs and enjoyed the best tasting crabs I've ever had. No butter needed.

... mountain at a 75 degree angle and flowing under and out of it was a surge of water that looked like a good sized river. It was unthinkable how the glacier maintained its position on the mountain, with all that water lubricating the bottom on such a steep rock face. Amazing.
We spent a good portion of the afternoon traveling the east arm, where we will explore more tomorrow. I took a little nappy because the boat makes me sleepy. When I awoke ...

... shoulder and noticed everyone was ogling over the ice, so I turned quickly and gave it a lick. Brr. It was cold and tasted like water. Not really sure what I was expecting from 200 year old ice. What's fascinating about being so close is realizing you are the first animal to walk on this dirt in thousands of years. The whole experience was quite powerful. There is a sacredness to the glaciers that, in part, come from their utter beauty. I just hope they don't come with giardia.

... sends you out to the car in the parking lot. No need to give you keys because keys are in the ignition. Well, a customer rented a vehicle, signed the paperwork, and hopped into the car in the parking lot. He went about his business for a week, then returned the vehicle to the rental company. At the time of return, the rental guy went out to check that the car had been refueled. It was then he discovered the car, which had been rented for a ...

... is a United States National Park in the southern part of Alaska west of Juneau. The park area was included in an International Biosphere Reserve in 1986 and is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park covers 5,130 mi˛ (13,287 km˛). Most of the park is a designated wilderness area which covers 4,164 mi˛ (10,784 km˛) of the park. Visualization of Glacier Bay, based on Landsat ...

We were woken several times in the night by whales close in to the beach. The tents are pitched about a hundred yards from the beach in a clearing in the woods. So warm and dry at night but we still get whale lullabies. Soft light this morning with low clouds made for nice pictures. We had a walk in the woods this morning and saw spruce and hemlock. Whales still going by but slow and languid today. Paddling after lunch. Sent from my iPhone

... There were 4 pups and two adults playing on the beach with a stick and then a fish. We watched them playing on the beach for about 15 minutes as dogs would play in the backyard. We also caught a glimpse of a brown bear and cub. We saw mountain goats on the side of cliffs. We headed for the Johns Hopkins Glacier. We knudged through the ice until we were quite close. We heard it creaking and moving and heard it ...

... puffin, the national bird of Alaska. Then we arrived at the most glacier I had ever seen in my life. The end of the glacier that throw ton and tons of ice in the bay is 25 stories high and the ice river behind it is 40 miles long. Amazing (see pictures). We stayed there for 30mns just gazing at this majestic creation of nature. And the sunshine was there. Magic. On the way back we visited more bays and saw more glaciers. Finally we were back at the lodge at 15.30 ...

... fish, and one species of amphibian known in Denali. There are no reptiles recorded in Denali. *More than 650 species of flowering plants as well as many species of mosses, lichens, fungi, algae, and others grace the slopes and valleys of Denali.