Tracy Arm is one of the most beautiful places we've seen, with it's magnificent blue ice formations. It lies on Stephens passage south of Juneau and north of Petersburg. We passed by it on our way up to Juneau becuase we wanted to meet some friends and had to keep a schedule, but we backtracked a bit on our way down in order to see what we'd missed, and we're glad we did.

I'm glad we went to Glacier Bay first, or I would have been much more concerned navigating in ice. Now, I almost felt competent at it. Tracy arm is even thicker ice than any we'd seen in Glacier Bay. It's still scary, watching like a hawk for every little baseball-sized chunk (which usually hides a basketball-sized chunk below water).

We spent the night of the 20th and 21st at the un-named Cove at the head of Tracy Arm, and the day of the 21st journeying in to see Sawyer Glacier.

There are actually two Sawyer Glaciers -- North Sawyer and South Sawyer, and by looking at the ice flow you can generally see which one you can get closer to. We chose South Sawyer, and were able to get within about 2/3 of a mile of the face of the glacier. See the photos of the radar image to get an idea about how much ice was around us!

Generally the technique is to go VERY SLOWLY (like 1 kt or so) when you're in the thick ice, so if you do hit something (which you will), you won't damage your boat (much). Many of these ice chunks are volkswagen sized or larger, and they weigh a ton (more, actually).

Check out the last photo of the partly-rolled-over iceberg, it gives an idea of how much ice lies below some of the bergs!

We had no sun, but not much rain either, which is a welcome change!

Photo Gallery