South OZ Adventurers - Adventure, Travel, Expeditions


Le Conte Glacier

Le Conte Glacier is the southern most tide water glacier in the northern hemisphere. Tide water glaciers are glaciers that come right down and calf into the ocean. And whilst there are many more glaciers further south, there are none that come down to the ocean. Paddling into a bay which has a glacier at it's head it something unique and definitely something that we were both looking forward to.

We had been transported to the mouth of Le Conte Bay, by Ron and Klas from the Petersburg Pilot, and after a few quick photos and goodbyes we decided to head up into the bay 5 miles to try and get a look at the glacier. It took us over 2 hours of dodging icebergs before we rounded a point and got our first glimpse of the mass of ice that was slowly making its way down into the ocean.

The air that was following the ice down the bay was cold. Really cold, and so was the water. As the ice became thicker, the paddling got slower and I got colder. But the thrill of paddling through ice and seeing Harbour Seals lying on the icebergs made the cold seem more bearable. However after about 20 minutes of trying to pick our ways closer and not making any headway I realised that I could no longer feel my feet and my fingers were struggling with the buttons on my camera. Probably time to get going before we get any colder.

The paddle out of the bay was warming and the prospect of staying in a warm hut that night was even more so. We managed to find the Forest Service emergency shelter that we had been assured was somewhere just outside Le Conte Bay, however it was the most ramshackle broken down hut that either of us had ever seen and we both opted to put our tents up and sleep outside. But it had a wood stove and plenty of dry wood. However it wasn't until I had the fire going that we realised that the stove didn't have a chimney and that the hut was quickly filling with smoke. But our gear was drying out, even if it would smell like smoke for the next week, it was a price i was prepared to pay for putting on dry clothes in the morning...