Having requested that we “say hello to the bears” on his behalf, Gerry’s parting advice was that we should avoid cooking bacon in our tents, Graham Dore takes up the story.

We were left alone, the four of us, with a huge pile of kit literally tipped out (Gerry had agreed to look after our bags) on the top of a small beach on the west side of Elrington Island, near the outer reaches of Prince William Sound. Our jumble of kit included all of the parts needed to assemble our two folding Feathercraft K2 sea kayaks, paddling and camping gear and all the food and fuel we reckoned we would need for 19 days out on the water.

It was early evening when we were dropped and we soon had a brew on, assembled our boats, erected our tents and were cooking our meal for the evening. The weather was fair and things were looking good. That night, being hyper-sensitive to any noise that might conceivably be a bear during the early part of our trip, I was woken by whales (presumed to be humpbacks) blowing in the little bay in front of our tents – amazing!

The weather was still fine and calm the next morning so we departed our drop-off beach and headed for the open water. We soon saw some humpback whales at a fair distance and also a group of sea otters. We saw them in a wide variety of waters from the open water to some of the more secluded and narrow channels. They seem to be pretty hardy creatures as we also saw some, apparently lounging afloat, right up close to the tidewater glaciers, where the water temperature is not much above freezing. They are somewhat larger than the more familiar river otters, and love lying on their backs with their heads and toes sticking up out of the water, often with their young resting on their bellies. Sometimes they would approach us for a closer look when we passed near to them, turning themselves towards us and rising up higher in the water for a better look.

Before turning back inshore and heading for the more sheltered waters of the sound we visited Procession Rocks to take a look at the boisterous sealions crowded on the outcrops. They were always playful, leading us to be a little wary of them, though they never seemed to be wary of us at all!
Our second night’s camp was an absolute classic, with ample tent space on a huge flat area behind a stony beach. There was a handy driftwood tree trunk on the beach for leaning against and hanging kit on - all this with the pristine Bainbridge glacier and a spectacular range of snowy mountains as a backdrop. This really was setting the scene for campsites to come since the camp spots throughout were of an excellent standard. We used the 1:100,000 National Geographic Trails Illustrated topographic maps (sheet 761 covers all of the western sound) which have dots marked at suggested kayak landing places. Generally (but not quite universally) these locations were good for a night’s camp. Another invaluable source of information was Paul Twardock’s book ‘Kayaking and Camping in Prince William Sound’.

Black bears
We did our best towards bear-sensitive camping throughout the trip, only throwing caution to the wind on occasions when we were on very small islands a little way offshore which had no reason for a bear to visit. It was reassuring to know that, throughout the area of our travels we should only expect to see black bears and not the ‘braver’ (as one paddler we chatted to put it) brown or grizzly bears. Hanging 19 days worth of food up the spindly trees on offer at many of our camp spots was not a practical option so we generally opted for storing all our food in drysacks a little way from our tents, boats and cooking area. We tied the whole lot to something like a bush or tree stump and fixed our bear bell to the top in the hope that we would hear if something interfered with our precious pantry in the night. We cooked away from our tents and disposed of any scraps of food, used toothpaste etcetera in the sea. Thankfully we had no problems.

At only two places did we spend two consecutive nights and in one of these, towards the end of the trip, I saw a black bear just a few hundred yards away from our tents during the day preceding our second night there. We discussed the option of moving but decided to stay put. All of our other bear sightings (there were four others) were of bears, which were ashore while we were afloat. Each time, as soon as the bears became aware of our presence they ambled off, which was reassuring!

They say that in Prince William Sound you should expect two wet days in every three. On arrival we learned that the weather had already been good for a week so we expected the worst and that it would break as soon as we started our paddle. On the contrary we enjoyed a spell of nine continuous days of amazingly good weather at the start of our trip. Almost every morning we would peer out of the tent to see clear blue skies, or maybe just the odd bit of cotton wool cumulus.

Noticeably cooler
The air, and particularly water temperature was noticeably cooler in the vicinity of the tidewater glaciers we visited. When the weather did finally break we had a couple of days of very wet weather. The wind picked up for a time giving us an exciting four-mile crossing of the Wells Passage. The cloud was low and the air very damp; we began to wonder if we were going to have a holiday in two halves and that we would have forgotten all about the heady fine weather days at the start of the trip by the time we reached the end. We did get some more wonderful days though, and I guess weather patterns were more ‘normal’ for the area after the bonus spell of prolonged good weather.

At Icy Bay, one of our many out and back side trips, we picked our way up through the brash to a large flat gravely area within a mile of the face of the ‘Icy’ tidewater glacier. En route we looked into Nassau Fiord and the Chenega Glacier but the density of brash ice in Nassau looked impossible, particularly for us in our folding kayaks. At our planned Icy Bay camping place we soon noticed bear poo on the beach but agreed it did not look particularly fresh. We made camp at this spectacular setting and settled down for the late afternoon and evening. While we were there, the glacier thundered and growled spewing more and more ice into the fiord. By evening it looked as though we might have an unscheduled prolonged stay at this site as the ice in the fiord continued to thicken. There was no accessible supply of water at this place that we could find bar a powerful glacial stream which was laden with ‘loose bowel’ inducing sediment. Anna did find a dripping rock which would produce a pan enough for a brew for two in about half an hour but this was hardly a reliable source. Exit behind the beach was blocked by steep cliffs in one direction and impenetrable scrub in another. There was also a good spattering of snow banks right down to sea level but melting snow for water was not an option because we had not calculated our fuel supply to cover that.

In the morning we looked out at the fiord and doubted we would get out but decided to try our luck anyway. We broke camp, packed and just managed to pick, bump and squeeze our way a few hundred yards to a small headland which was causing a constriction for the brash wanting to exit the fiord. After this (seeing beyond the waters visible from the camp) the ice thinned and we were OK. Throughout the rest of the trip we visited a number of similar tidewater glaciers but we were always careful to make camp on the open water side of any restriction which might cause the brash to back up!

On the subject of tidewater glaciers, although there are many, many glaciers throughout the sound, most of these are no longer tidewater (i.e. no longer calving ice directly into the saltwater). The glaciers in the area are all receding rapidly. At the Nellie Juan glacier we camped on an area that would have been under the glacier in the 1930s but which is now well over a mile from the face of the glacier (which incidentally is still tidewater and is well worth a visit). You have to be a little wary when leaving kayaks on the beach near a tidewater glacier (or even camping close to the high water level) since a big ice fall can give rise to substantial waves. At Blacksands a huge chunk fell off the Barry glacier and caused a breaking wave of around three to four feet in height to come rolling onto the beach on an otherwise completely calm day! Not what you want when you are packing a boat at the water line, especially when you remember that in some places the wave might be carrying chunks of brash. Thankfully this happened about half an hour before we packed the boats!

Mosquitoes
I think Alaska upholds a fairly widespread reputation as having a mosquito problem, not to mention other biting insect pests. The worst mosquito problems, though, are an inland phenomenon. Being fairly early in the bug season at the end of May and the first couple of weeks in June, we were blessed with virtually bug free conditions at the start of the trip and only relatively few bugs at the worst times nearer the end.

In 1964 the Prince William Sound area was hit by a devastating tsunami tidal wave. The original Chenega village - a ‘first nation’ Indian settlement - was destroyed and tens of people (about a third of the population) lost their lives. The old village is now a sacred site for the Chenega people and outsiders are not allowed to visit. The re-sited village is situated further out in the sound, not far from where we started our trip. As it happened, neither place were particularly close to our chosen route so we did not visit or pass close to them. A tinning factory, the ruins of which we did visit briefly, was another casualty of the disaster. Several people lost their lives here and the badly damaged factory was abandoned after the disaster. The most evident legacy of this event is the lines of dead trees, which remain on many of the lowest lying coastal areas.

We covered something in the region of 275 miles by kayak over 18 days on the water. For our efforts we were rewarded with truly spectacular snow, ice and forest mountain scenery, predominantly benign paddling conditions and fantastic and plentiful wildlife. All in all, we had a first rate trip and would recommend the sound as a great kayaking venue.