My plan had been to spend the day rigorously hiking as part of my Machu Picchu training, but all it took was a brief phone call from Emmie to blow my plans out of the water. Or maybe "onto the water" is more appropriate. After all, how could I turn down a chance to sail out to Shoup Bay on a hot, sunny day?
It was 75 degrees by the time the Segel Stuga motored out of the harbor about noon, and I was doubting my decision to wear capris instead of shorts. I was also wishing I'd brought sun screen. Unbelievable weather for Valdez, but I'll take it.
We were able to sail down the Port the five-ish miles to Shoup Bay - with me at the wheel the whole way. I still don't get the physics of sailing, but I'm starting to pick up a few things. Nonetheless, I only got us there because Mark and Emmie fed me a constant stream of "turn left 10 degrees," "okay, right five degrees," and so on. I think taking a sailing class might be in my future - perhaps in the Greek Isles.
The entrance to Shoup Bay is nice and wide, but you have to go over a shallow moraine left behind by Shoup Glacier many years ago. We hit it (or more importantly, didn't hit it) at high tide, and had a comfortable 20 feet under our keel as Mark motored us in to an anchorage by the McAllister cabin, a public use cabin operated by Alaska State Parks. This cabin is on the west side of the outer bay. There are two others, Kittiwake and Moraine, which are on the east side of the inner lagoon.
Ah, the inner lagoon. Getting there is a bit like seeking the mystery of mysteries. Okay, maybe not quite that exotic, but it is exciting. The channel into the lagoon is a narrow, very shallow river past the island which is a kittiwake rookery. The current can be quite swift - when we came out, it was a bit like running small river rapids. With four people and a dog in a little 10-foot inflatable dinghy with an 8-horsepower outboard, it was good we got to the channel on a flood tide or we'd never have made it in.
There was a stiff wind blowing off the glacier, and Emmie and I, sitting in the front of the dinghy, took the worst of the spray as we bounced toward the glacier's face. Mind you, this water has ice bergs floating in it. It's not warm. We were most grateful to pull up on the gravel next to the glacier so we could dry off and thaw. Just as we all got ashore, a small section of the glacier calved for us, coming down in three or four big chunks. Oddly, it calved over dry ground rather than over water. I was impressed. I've heard glaciers calve many times, but this was the first time I'd seen it.
We wandered around for a bit, exploring the gravel left behind as the glacier has retreated over the past many years. As we walked, we noted that no vegetation had started growing in the few hundred yards closest to the lake, and wondered how long it had been since it was covered in ice. It made me think of lava fields in Hawaii that can take a hundred years or more to revegetate. I don't imagine this area will take so long, but who knows?
In addition to eventually seeing fireweed and alder sprouting amongst the rocks, we also found odd mats of what appeared to be dried layers of bark or something else vegetative. The layers easily came apart, much in the way shale does. I wondered if it were possible for them to be old trees that had been crushed by the glacier, but that seems improbable. My favorite theory was that they were wooly mammoth patties. If you happen to know what they are, please leave a comment and tell the rest of us.
After exploring a bit longer, watching a local tourist helicopter fly around over the glacier, and throwing rocks for Henry, we puttered back to the boat. Along the way, we stopped to check out the Kittiwake and Moraine cabins. These two are accessible by either boat or trail (McAllister can only be reached by boat). I had been thinking the 10-mile hike out to Shoup Bay from Valdez would be a fun first backpacking trip for Rowan and I, but after reading some of the guest book entries, I'm reconsidering. "Hell" appeared a little too often in descriptions of the trail for me to want to risk ruining Rowan on backpacking her first time out. The view, however, might be worth it.
Many thanks to the Swanson family for inviting me to sail with them. What a treat!
