Hey Folks,

After a couple of days I was fortunate to have the weather clear up a bit. The place is pretty amazing. There were tons of birds in the area, gulls, oystercatchers, sea ducks, murres, murrelets, and more. Flowers were in full swing, and impressive stands of lupine were everywhere.

Most impressive however, is Mt St. Elias. I’ve been lucky enough to see a few great mountains around North America, and I doubt any of them are as impressive a sight at Mt. St. Elias. It literally soars skyward from the coast, towering over 18 000′ high. From Icy Bay I was about 20 miles from the mountain, and it’s simply overpowering to be to close to something so grand. I’d definitely suggest Mt. St. Elias is one of the grand mountains of the world. It’s the tallest coastal mountain in the world, and the St. Elias is the highest coastal mountain range in the world. No other mountain has the vertical relief of St. Elias – though the summit of Everest, for example, is over 29 000′ above sea level, the mountain begins at 17 000′ above seal level. Mt. St. Elias shoots up from the ocean to 18 008′ – I was going to name this photo “Zero to 18 000 in 1/250th of a second”.

And to think I was worried that I’d actually be able to see the mountain from my viewpoint if the weather cleared up. It’s be impossible to NOT see it.

So I had a nice afternoon here, enjoyed Mt. St. Elias for all I could, and then the clouds socked back in, which was kind of a bummer. But I was still keen to explore the area further, and looked forward to the days ahead.

More sea kayaking photos.

Cheers

Carl