July 20 - Glacier Bay Day 2: Haines AK

Still cloudy this morning (but not raining). After a 5:30am start yesterday, we get a break and meet for breakfast at 8am. Since we got until 10am before we leave the hotel, I take a quick 2 block walk down to the harbor and the Fast Ferry/Cruise Ship dock (different from where we arrive by ferry yesterday) for a look see. 

There's a lovely sign on the entry to Haines.

And a lovely view of the town as well.

This is one of my favorite signs.

I see a nice iron sculpture of a dog pull cart sculpture.

And, of course, there are some great views of the water.

I meet up with the group and we start our "city" tour: a walk around the old Fort Seward buildings, a stop at a museum for native carvers, a couple local shops and then the Sheldom Museum and Cultural Center. They have 2 displays: one on the native Chilkat and Chilkoot Tlinglet tribes and the second is a food museum. 

Afterwards, we have lunch at the Bamboo Room and then head to the Hammer Museum. Yes, a hammer museum - over 1400 of them dating from ancient time to the present day.

Since I was done, the guide let me head back to the hotel. I go via the waterfront walking past the small boat harbor and back to the fast ferry dock. The sun is finally starting to come out now which is perfect because this afternoon, we are going on a float trip down through the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve (established in 1982 by the state is a 48,000 acre sanctuary for the Bald Eagle and salmon). 

The Chilkat River is home to all 5 species of Pacific Salmon (Chum, Pink, Coho, Sockeye, and King) and has one of the largest King and Coho runs in all SE Alaska. Of course all this fish brings in the eagles and bears - which I'm hoping to see. I believe we were told there were between 200-300 resident eagles as this river never freezes. And in late Nov, because of a late Chum Salmon run, there are over 4000 long the river. There's an Eagle Festival to celebrate.

The critical preserve section is mile 18 - 25 (the road mileage from Haines) and is best for viewing.

We leave at 2:30 for the raft trip. The sun is out now!! We follow the glacier fed Chilkat River about 20-22 miles to the "put-in" spot. We get our safety lesson and head out for the rafts into this beautiful milky grey colored braided river.

As a group of 7, we get our own raft. Ellie is our river guide. Beautiful mountains are everywhere. Off we go down the river looking for eagles, moose and bear. 

It didn't take long to spot some eagles. They were in trees, on logs, on dry spots on the river. We see single adults, adult pairs, 

and juveniles (he will get his white head at age 4-5).

Probably see over 20 eagles today.

(And the views were awesome!)

We see an eagle drying his wings very early on. 

It's called the Thunderbird pose - usually used by the eagle to drying its wings -- guess he must have wrestled a fish earlier today.

An eagle with a nest to the right (actually see several nests today)

Then 5 eagles challenging for a fish. Even an Artic Tern got into the mix. There was almost an eagle battle but the challengers backed off.

Before we stopped for all the other boats to catch up, 

another eagle drying his wings. Way cool!

The mountains were fabulous the whole day. And there were Darner dragonflies along the river. (I think they were Variegated Darners.)

Amazing day (especially the afternoon)!

After dinner, only two of us (plus the guide) went to cruise the Chilkoot River looking for bear. It's later this evening - we started at 9:30. We're hoping the later start will lead us to some bear.

The sunset over the channel and mountains is beautiful!

We cruise slowly down the river. We see bear sign - fresh scat in the middle of the road - directly across from a animal trail coming out of the woods......but no bear.

At the fish gate, over 21,000 fish were counted today (3 times the number from yesterday) but no bear. I do see about 5 Mergansers swimming/diving by the gate.

We turned around at the lake and head back slowly -- still no bear :( But at least we tried.

We are moving from Haines to Glacier Bay tomorrow - yea!!

Great day!