The Legend of the Deadly-Beautiful Liyuya Bay, Alaska
Chris Bray is a Gear Supply Ambassador and Australian Geographic Photographer who knows how to explore better than most. He ventured to one of the most beautiful and dangerous bays in the world and lived to report back!
The guide book cheerfully states that "The first thing you need to know about the Lituya Bay entrance is that is has killed many people." Over 100 people have been killed trying to cross it. In 1786, 21 sailors were drowned from two separate boats all part of the La Perouse expedition. The slack tidal current only lasts for about 5 minutes, and for us, coming from 95 miles away (an overnight sail from Yakutat) we'd need a miracle to somehow arrive on time, and Jess wasn't keen on bobbing around out there waiting.
Each year, my adventurous wife Jess and I sail our little wooden, a 29-foot junk-rigged, sailboat ‘Teleport’ in search of adventures. Last northern hemisphere summer, we sailed south from near Anchorage, Alaska, and while crossing the Gulf of Alaska, decided to attempt a visit into the infamously deadly Lituya Bay. A long narrow bay about 6.5nm long and 1.5nm wide with a dangerous bar entrance formed by a spit almost closing off the bay, featuring an island in the middle and a T-shaped head to the bay with glaciers feeding in around each corner, this bay straddles the 'Fairweather Fault' and is officially the site of the largest wave in history!
Just 57 years ago (in 1958) an earthquake caused 2,000 ft of mountainside (40 million cubic meters of rock and ice) to collapse into the left-hand glacial inlet at the head of the bay, ejecting a colossal surge of water that swept up and over the left hand corner headland, snapping off every single tree up to a height of 1,800 feet (600m!), and then this wall of water rushed down the full length of the bay at about 120 miles/hr (almost 200km/hr), engulfing much of the middle Island, completely removing even the largest pine trees on either side of the bay forming a 'bath ring' or new 'high tide level' about 300ft (100m) up all the way out to sea.
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I know it sounds like a daft, unnecessarily suicidal game to stop over in Lituya Bay, but honestly, it was the most beautiful, awe-inspiring and unforgettable place we've visited this year and one of the more memorable locations of my life. We miraculously managed to turn up at the entrance dead-on slack tide and without even so much as pausing, we swung to line ourselves up with the distant lead markers (through binoculars) and slipped through unscathed. We spent 2 amazing days anchored behind Cenotaph Island, blissfully calm and sunny, caught huge numbers of giant prawns in our shrimp trap (including our biggest yet at 25cm!), had campfires ashore, and even hiked inland with our waterproof Boreas Waterproof backpack to the face of one of the glaciers with a beautiful melt water pool at the terminus where we took 360 degree panoramic photos, 3D photos and even flew the drone as rocks continually melted free and tumbled down into the pool in front of us. Standing there between the still very obvious landslide site to our right where half a mountain is still clearly missing, and gazing up in uncomprehending awe at the height where the old trees were swept away 1,800 feet above us on the opposite face to the right is something we'll never forget.
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| Jess Bray with a backdrop to blow your mind! Alaska |
Things got a little bouncy as we exited the entrance on the 6th July due to apparently updated current timings being 30min off (should have used the Navionics instead), but all's well that ends well, and from there it was an excellent 40nm sail down the last stretch of exposed coastline before we rounded Cape Spencer and tucked, at last, into the start of the popular 'The Inside Passage', rafting up to another boat (shock horror) in the tiny boardwalk village of Elfin Cove.
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