Part 1 of 3 - Icebreaking our way up Tracy Arm
29 July 2016 | Tracy Arm, Alaska
Scott
Tracy Arm was crazy beautiful with the mountains, waterfalls, sheer cliffs, and thousands of icebergs, large and small. July 9th was a very long day with 50 Nmi of mostly motorin, starting out at Williams Cove. We had to find a path through the ice as it constantly moved and shifted with openings turning into dead ends in minutes. Celeste was on the bow and hanging over to fend off with the boat hook. We pushed thru and crunched thru the small stuff as we avoided the big monsters.
Several chunks got under the boat and one took out our knot meter impeller. Finally we just had to turn back but shortly after that a new path opened up and we make it all the way to the North Sawyer glacier face and saw up close the power and noise of a calving glacier. An icy downdraft came off the face and was major cold but the shades of green, blue, and white reminded me of how great an artist our God is.
As I watched the grand spectacle, a nagging thought was slowly getting louder, "What if the ice shifts too much to get back through?" 'To be continued'