ALASKA
Prince William Sound / College Fjord
July 2023
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After leaving Glacier Bay yesterday, the ship exited the Inside Passage and entered the Gulf of Alaska. We will be at sea all day with the afternoon and evening highlighted by with a cruise through picturesque Prince William Sound and College Fjord. The seas while we were out in the Gulf of Alaska were about 5 feet. But the ship has amazing stabilizers, so while I could feel the movement, it didn't cause any issues for me. It was also quite foggy, and I could here the ship sounding the fog horn on a regular basis.
Glaciers have shaped many Alaska lakes, rivers, and valleys one slow centimeter at a time. These majestic, centuries-old rivers of ice cascade from the mountains to the sea. We entered Prince William Sound in the late afternoon. Prince William Sound encompasses 3800 miles of coastline, bounded to the east and north by the Chugach Mountains and to the west by the Kenai Peninsula. Commercially important for the fishing and oil industries, the sound is also prized for its abundance of marine and coastal life, its rainforest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock, and its glacier-studded landscape. The sound contains 150 glaciers including 17 tidewater glaciers, known for dramatically calving huge ice chunks into the sea. Prince William Sound is one of the most active areas for ice calving.
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Prince William Sound is also (unfortunately) infamous for being the site of the massive Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. The area is still recovering from the environmental damage done by the oil.
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The scenic trip through College Fjord brings us super close to many glaciers. There’s even a spot where you can see eight at once. Of all the Alaska fjords, College Fjord is the most storied. The Harriman Expedition of 1899 with John Muir and other notable scientists traversed College Fjord on an expedition funded by Ivy League colleges. All of the glaciers were named for various colleges. As you travel into College Fjord, the glaciers on the left are named for women's colleges and those on the right are named for men's colleges. The names are Amherst, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Harvard, Smith, Vassar, and Yale. Harvard Glacier is the biggest—its face is a mile and a half across. In case you’re wondering, it is rumored that the scientists snubbed Princeton.
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It was so cool seeing this incredible collection of glaciers. Many of them have dark moraines flowing down them which creates a spectacular contrast with the white ice. The ship's crew opens the bow while cruising through Collge Fjord, so passengers can get a close up view of the glaciers. I was also able to get a great view from my balcony (which was on the starboard side of the ship) as we cruised back through the fjords.
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Tomorrow, we will be stopping at Whittier, Alaska and disembarking from the ship. And then I will be continuing my adventure on land.
