LITUYA BAY, GLACIER BAY NATIONAL PARK
COASTAL NATURAL HISTORY ADVENTURES
Of Lituya Bay's astounding grandeur, the French explorer La Perouse said, "I never saw a breath of air ruffle the surface of this water; it is never troubled but by the fall of immense blocks of ice, which continually detach themselves from fine glaciers, and which in falling make a noise that resounds far through the mountains."
Imagine Glacier Bay as John Muir saw it in 1899, as a member of the legendary Harriman Expedition— without the cruise ships, the guidebooks, and interpretive signs that define the modern visitor’s experience.
May is a magical time to be in Glacier Bay National Park because we have it largely to ourselves— just the bears, the first returning humpback whales, and the thousands of migrating shore and seabirds bound for Arctic nesting sites. Both Glacier Bay and Lituya are major stops on the Pacific Flyway. Against a backdrop of some of the most magnificent mountains on earth, rivers of glacial ice tumble into the sea and aquamarine colored icebergs drift by on the tides. Responding to the boom and crash of ice at the glacier front, kittiwakes and Arctic terns swirl over the churning, welling waters in search of food. Western sandpipers and other shorebirds skitter along the shorelines, poking their bills into the food-rich mud and gravels of the intertidal zone. Sea ducks and enormous rafts of harlequin ducks forage in the quiet bays before making the final push to their nesting areas. Grizzlies and black bears, recently emerged from their hibernation dens, can be seen bending the branches of alders down to feed on the sweetly-resinous leaf buds, grazing on swards of lush sedges, and scraping succulent barnacles and mussels from rocks along the water’s edge. For the wildlife of Glacier Bay and the outer islands, this is truly a time of plenty.
Along the wild, storm-battered coastline of the Gulf of Alaska, just south of the Tlingit village of Yakutat, a whale-shaped fjord—Lituya Bay—lies at the foot of the spectacular Fairweather Range. Nowhere else in the world do mountains tower so far above the sea. The only access to this legendary wilderness arm of Glacier Bay National Park is by small boat or seaplane—well beyond the capabilities of most Park visitors. Lituya Bay is situated at the confluence of three glaciers—the Lituya, the Cascade, and the North Crillon—and centered along a T-shaped epicenter of intense geologic activity known as the Fairweather Fault. Since 1899, nine earthquakes have rumbled across the region, toppling mountains and flaying this ice-carved land to its bedrock roots. In 1958, a magnitude 8.3 earthquake centered on Cross Sound, located forty-five miles to the southeast, set the fjord into earth-wrenching motion.The collapse of an entire mountainside near the head of Lituya triggered a 1,740-foot tsunami-like wave. The wave completely decapitated the snout of Lituya Glacier, scoured all the trees from the walls of the fjord, and destroyed three fishing boats anchored in the bay. The swirling maelstrom took a tremendous toll on the bay’s wildlife—seabirds, fish, marine animals, whales, bears, and wolves. For humans, the quake was no less devastating. Despite its violent history, Lituya Bay offers some of the most spectacular wilderness to be found anywhere. Join us for this very special voyage of discovery!
