Fishing in Alaska can be a competitive sport thanks to the abundant wildlife that also enjoys fresh fish.  Take this little guy in Glacier Bay.  I’m casting off the dock when along comes a river otter with some sort of flatfish in its mouth.

He pops up on part of the dock and proceeds to chow down on his catch pausing to make sure my colleague and I are not getting too close to maybe muscle in on his dinner.  I saw a lot of sea otters in Glacier Bay, but this was a river otter.  The smaller size and monochromatic fur easily distinguish it from its cousin.

A few days later, it was the bald eagles in the estuary of the Chilkoot River outside of Haines.  These bold birds thought that when they saw a fish struggling near the surface, there was an easy meal to be had.  It seemed to take them until the last minute to notice that the fish they saw was already claimed by the human standing on the bank.  I had some very close fly-bys related to a nice Dolly Varden Trout I was keeping for supper.

There was a moment or two where I wasn’t sure the eagle would break off its attempt at the fish laying three feet from me; to the point where my brain had begun the fight or flight thought process.  Another half-second and maybe I would’ve been ducking.

The Chilkoot River was between salmon runs while I was there, so I suspect the eagles were getting hungry in anticipation of the arrival of thousands of Sockeyes in just a couple weeks.  By mid-July, they probably would have paid me no mind.  Like so much else in life, cool wildlife encounters sometimes come down to simple timing.

Glacier Bay National Park is a place I experienced on foot for a few hours last summer and it was a lot of fun.  A short hike with my fishing gear in tow yielded a rain-soaked afternoon of wilderness solitude.  But Glacier Bay is a water-oriented place and is best seen from some sort of watercraft.  You can cover far more area and see much more of the exotic wildlife the park has to offer.  So this time out, I availed myself of one of the guided boat tours available every day in summer.

The good ship St. Phillip didn’t even push off from the dock before the first few humpback whales were spotted, thus setting the tone for a spectacular day.  Eleven hours and many, many photographs later, I had a solid, first-hand appreciation for one of the most fabulous places on the entire planet. The symphony of land and water and life does not care that it impresses you, but it does.  The most incredible thing about a wilderness like Glacier Bay is its indifference to your presence.  A brown bear beach-combing for a meal pays no attention to the metal craft floating a hundred meters offshore despite the clicking shutters and grumbling engine.  The massive wall of ice doesn’t care who is watching when it sloughs a hundred tons of itself into the ocean.  The frozen peaks are unconcerned that the clouds have given way and exposed them to human eyes for the first time in a week.  This is a place where the dominance of natural forces is obvious to anyone who visits.

I watched a brown bear overturn large boulders as if they were made of cork.

I felt the great thunder of ice plunging down a 200 foot frozen escarpment.

Sea lions jockeyed for position on a marble exposure jutting from the bay.

A mountain goat and her kid rest on a patch of grass high above the cold waters.

More sea otters in one photograph than lived in the entire bay 30 years ago

Then there is breath-taking vista after breath-taking vista, including some rare glimpses of Mt. Fairweather; highest peak in the park.  The name is a bit ironic since frequent clouds, fog and rain shroud the entire south end of the St. Elias Range on most days.

For my first adventure of this year’s Alaska trip, I took advantage of some downtime during an 80-degree heatwave in Juneau to return to Mendenhall Glacier.  Just like last time, it was a fantastic and challenging day hike.  But what a difference a year makes when it comes to the sights at the glacier itself.

The spectacular ice cave I explored last summer had melted away completely.

The melting ice freed an entire ridge from a frosty tomb for the first time in centuries.  These two pictures don’t come from the exact same spot, but I identified a few reference points on the crest of the newly exposed ridge.

These mountain glaciers are dynamic environments and it’s amazing to see this change in person.  This vantage will be completely different again next summer for anyone who gets to hike in.

This place will see more activity for much of the summer as I am returning to Southeast Alaska for another go-round for work.

But first I gotta get there.  I’m in the middle of three day road trip to Bellingham, Washington where the collection vehicle will catch a boat to Juneau.  It’s been an awesome drive, traveling about half the length of I-90, America’s longest interstate highway.

Today was very unique because a few miles into Montana, we spotted a funnel cloud jutting from a large thunderstorm a few miles from the highway.  I was riding shotgun and was able to snap some pics when the terrain allowed.

I’ve never spotted a tornado before.  Which is a good thing, I suppose, but I always thought it’d be cool to see one in the distance while traveling out West where the visibility is long and there are no people in the way.

This little funnel was short lived, as was the intensity of the storm that produced it, and I never saw it reach the ground, making it technically not a tornado.  The weather resources I was monitoring never gave out any alerts about the storm before it waned.  The area was extremely rural so it couldn’t have been a threat to more than a couple of ranches.  I wonder if the National Weather Service even knew about this one.