Zaandam in Endicott Arm

When we initially booked a cruise on Holland America Zaandam it was scheduled to go to Tracy Arm and Glacier Bay. Later that schedule got altered to Tracy Arm and Endicott Arm. We were supposed to go to Tracy Arm on the way to Juneau and Endicott Arm on the way back according to the most recent itinerary before the cruise started. On the way to Juneau we bypassed Tracy Arm and just continued on to Juneau. Apparently at some point they had planned that. We were not given an updated itinerary that didn’t include it, but the captain neglected to mention Tracy Arm when detailing all the places we would go that cruise in a short appearance onstage before a show on the second night of the cruise. The cruise director also neglected to mention it while talking of things to come the night before the itinerary said we were to go there. That makes three strikes for me on Tracy Arm. Previous cruises on Norwegian Sun and Ruby Princess were supposed to go to Tracy Arm, but went down Endicott instead. Both of those were last minute changes due to ice blockage. Quantum of the Seas was scheduled to go down Endicott Arm, but turned around without any sort of announcement to the passengers long before reaching Dawes Glacier at the end. I had thought with Zaandam being a smaller ship and this being a later season cruise we might finally make it down Tracy Arm, but no such luck.

You can’t see Sumdum Glacier through the fog

Our Zaandam cruise was its last Alaska cruise for the season. The weather definitely said summer is over being rainy at all of our Alaska ports. Turning into Endicott Arm in the morning fog hung over the tops of the mountains and Sumdum Glacier near the entrance to the arm was shrouded in fog. Though the name is entertaining, it doesn’t actually mean someone thought it was a dumb glacier. In the Tlingit language it means big noise – probably due to the loud cracking sound of ice breaking off when a glacier calves, which is often preceded by thunderous rumbles.

waterfall in Endicott Arm

As we went farther and farther down Endicott Arm the weather cleared and the sun even came out. There was still a bit of fog at the tops of the mountains, but down at water level it was clear, sunny, and the warmest weather we had during our entire time in Alaska on that cruise, which is not to say it was actually warm. Just that with long johns, several layers of clothes, a warm winter jacket, hat, and gloves you could stand outside for quite awhile without absolutely freezing. Even if the weather is actually warm when you get near a glacier the temperature feels freezing. Because the glacier is of course a massive amount of ice.

waterfall and bergy bits

There’s only two glaciers to see in Endicott Arm. Sumdum Glacier is a hanging glacier visible on a mountain near the entrance to the arm. The mountain, called Mount Sumdum, spans the land between Endicott and Tracy Arms. On a map it looks like the glacier is not only bigger on the Tracy Arm side, but also closer to the water. Since I’ve never managed to actually cruise Tracy Arm I have no actual knowledge of how it looks from there. Tracy Arm also has twin Sawyer Glaciers, but you have to get to the ends of the channel to see them.

Dawes Glacier

The other glacier in Endicott Arm is Dawes Glacier down at the far end of the arm. On this visit the water was flat calm all the way there and the weather sunny at the glacier end with fog only at the mountain tops. My two previous visits there were at sunrise with the sun behind the glacier making it really hard to get a decent picture. This one was later in the day so other than some distracting reflections in the very clear and still water by the glacier it was much better for photos.

Zaandam at Dawes Glacier

As usual the ship spun a very slow circle as close as it could get to the face of the glacier so people on either side of the ship would have a chance to see. Not that people can’t wander over to the other side of the ship, but all of the public viewing areas get pretty crowded so it’s nice to see it away from the crowds in your own cabin, especially if you have one with a balcony. Holland America opens up the bow for scenic areas like this and many people congregated there. They have a tradition of serving pea soup at glacier viewings, which is quite tasty if you manage to snag a cup of it. They just had the occasional crew person bringing a tray of cups of soup out from the kitchen on this ship rather than a table set up with a pot of it so you had to be in the right place at the right time to get one. We happened to get lucky and come across a crew guy just as he got to the bow with a full tray.

scenery near Dawes Glacier

The bow cam channel on the stateroom TV was a really good way not only to see what is straight ahead if watching from your own room as the ship makes its way down the channel, but also a good way to see how crowded it is out there. Both the upper bow accessed from the front of deck 6 port side, and the main bow accessed through the theater were quite crowded not only at the glacier, but also for the last bit of the way there. The upper bow has stairways to the lower bow, but they were closed while the lower bow was open for glacier viewing. The stairways up from the promenade deck to the bow remained open so the theater was not the only access point, though everyone ended up herded through one small door whether going to or from the bow so the lines had to take turns for going in or out. You would think they would open the door on the other side and have one side for in and one for out, but they just opened one.

The front edge of the glacier is in a narrow channel

Dawes Glacier at the end of Endicott Arm was not the most impressive of glaciers the previous times I went there. Like most glaciers it is receding and has gotten smaller since my last visit. The ships used to get somewhat closer, but the face of the glacier has now retreated into a narrow channel so they can only get close enough to where they have enough space to turn around – probably a couple miles away. Eventually that glacier may retreat beyond a bend in that narrow channel where it won’t even be visible from where the cruise ships stop now, but that is probably still some years down the road. People who have never seen a glacier before may have been impressed, but not likely anyone who has. I did overhear other people saying they thought it was pretty small so it’s not just me.

Dawes Glacier

The captain and cruise director were hyping up Dawes Glacier in their short talks at the shows where they neglected to mention that we weren’t going to Tracy Arm or why. From the way they talked you would think we were going to Hubbard Glacier, which actually is massively huge and quite impressive. After having seen Hubbard I fail to be impressed by smaller glaciers though I do like seeing Sumdum Glacier because of the funny name.  Perhaps the captain and cruise director had not actually seen Dawes Glacier before and expected something bigger as both said it would be their first time going down Endicott Arm. Their previous cruises all summer must have gone to Glacier Bay and maybe even Tracy Arm as was scheduled for this cruise.

If I hadn’t been to Dawes Glacier before and known what to expect I’d have been pretty disappointed after hearing all the hype about what a grand and impressive glacier it is. Then again people who have not ever seen a glacier before might be impressed as they wouldn’t have any others to compare it to – and it is bigger than Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau. Anyone booking a cruise to Alaska specifically to see a glacier would be best off finding one that goes to Hubbard Glacier. It’s farther north than most of the round-trip one week cruises go so it’s not on that many cruise schedules, but definitely worth a visit if you find one that goes there.

the glacier looks like it has tire tracks on it

Besides being fairly small as tidewater glaciers go, Dawes is also kind of a dirty looking glacier having a couple moraines running through it. Moraines are where edges in the ice meet. Each edge has a lot of dirt it that pushes along at the end of the ice. These give this glacier the appearance of having dirty tire tracks running up the glacier. A terminal moraine is the ridge formed at the farthest end of a glacier’s advance. The terminal moraine to Dawes Glacier is called Wood Spit. It’s nowhere near the current face of the glacier. It’s located about 30 miles away in Holkham Bay near the entrance to Endicott Arm.

one of these bergy bits resembles a submarine

Other than the glaciers there’s lots of scenery with trees and waterfalls along the sides of the fjord and many bergy bits floating in the water. Even though they’re natural ice chunks calved off a glacier, bergy bits often look like ice sculptures of recognizable things – especially if you have a good imagination. On this trip we saw bergy bits that looked like a jet ski, a swan, a submarine, a whale, and a whole bunch that looked like fish. Bergy bits are miniature icebergs too small to actually be considered an iceberg.

icy wave runner bergy bit

Sometimes there are seals or sea birds on some of the bergy bits, but other than a few birds in flight we did not see any creatures on this visit.

As we slowly worked our way down the fjord toward the glacier the weather got nicer and nicer, but apparently it was where we were going rather than the weather itself. When we came back up the fjord the fog got thicker and the air colder the farther we went and by the time we got back to the opening to the inlet the sun hid behind the clouds again. Sumdum glacier was shrouded by even more fog on the way out than it had been on the way in. As glaciers go Sumdum is not impressive at all, at least not on the Endicott Arm side. Even on a sunny day it’s just a small patch of ice on a distant hill. It’s all about the name on that one. It’s fun to say “I went to Alaska and saw Sumdum Glacier.” Then people wonder why bother to go see them at all if you think it’s just some dumb glacier.

entrance to Ford’s Terror

There’s a small inlet branching off of Endicott Arm called Ford’s Terror. Cruise ships don’t go into it, but you can see the opening to it as the ship sails by. It’s called Ford’s Terror because of a naval crew member named Ford who rowed up the inlet in a small rowboat in 1889. He went in at slack tide, but became trapped in there for the next 6 terrifying hours unable to row back out in the turbulent waters of the incoming tide. Had he known he would be able to get out once the tide changed he might not have been so frightened.

sailing past Ford’s Terror

Endicott and Tracy arms both branch off in opposite directions from the same entrance off the main channel, called Stephens Passage. There was nothing blocking the entrance to Tracy Arm so I’m not sure why we didn’t go there. Somebody said it was closed. The same person also said Glacier Bay was closed, but the Grand Princess went there. It left Vancouver with our ship and went to all of the same ports we did, but was in Glacier Bay while we were in Endicott Arm so obviously they were wrong about Glacier Bay. It’s possible our ship didn’t secure a permit to go to Glacier Bay that day, but even that seems a bit odd since the cruise was scheduled to go there well in advance and had been going there all season. The scenery in Endicott Arm is pretty, and it was nice to have that little sun break.

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