Kenai Fjords National Park

Most of Alaska's Kenai Fjords National Park is accessible via a boat ride through Resurrection Bay where you can find stunning views of glaciers and aquatic wildlife.

Alaska

2000

About The Park

Kenai Fjords is a park that the average tourist can see in a one or two night stay depending on how long a boat ride you want to take. If you plan on an all-day boat ride then you’ll need to book two nights in Seward, Alaska so that you can board early in the morning.

Most of the park is wilderness. Of the 1,000 square miles (2,711 sq km) roughly half is the Harding Ice Field which can only to be seen via a strenuous hike (see below) or a flightseeing tour with Natron Air.

The rest of the park, with the exception of the visitor center area near Seward, is accessible by watercraft to travel into the bays and fjords to see glaciers and wildlife.

Of course if you are the adventurous type there’s plenty of opportunity to go into the back country for hiking, fishing and camping.

Seward, Alaska is 125 miles south of Anchorage and the drive can be done in 2.5 hours. So if you leave early you can make good use of the rest of the day.

If you are driving, the road hugs the coast along the water (Turnagain Arm) and you’ll pass some interesting mud flats. When the tide is low people take walks on them. However, they can be dangerous as you can run into quicksand. I read of a woman whose legs were trapped and she could not get them out. When the tide came in she drowned before help could arrive to rescue her.

Boat Tours

The most popular way to see the park is via a boat tour where you can see the famous tidewater glaciers and aquatic wildlife.

Major Marine

Major Marine has a variety of boat tours. You can pick from 3 to 8 or 9 hour tours depending on what works for you. When we went I don’t recall all the different length tours that I see now. We took an all day tour that I remember to be about 9 hours. With the longer cruises they do have a buffet lunch. Depending on the time of the year you may see whales. Generally, you are likely to see Orcas, dolphins, sea lions, otters, puffins, other sea birds and, of course, glaciers.

Our tour took us to the Holgate Glacier which flows out of the Harding Ice Field. It is an impressive wall of ice which is flowing into the sea and regularly ‘calves’ huge chunks of ice that can be thousands of tons into the water. The one that we saw, and can be seen in the photo gallery, dropped a large enough chunk that we could see a wave emanating from it and heading in our direction. We could hear the boats engines rev up as the captain immediately turned the boat’s bow in the direction of the wave. The boat had been turned sideways to give everyone the best view and, in that orientation, the wave could have hit the boat broadside with enough force to knock someone into the frigid water.

Wildlife

The typical Alaskan wildlife can be found in the park: grizzly bears, black bears, moose, wolverines and mountain goats. In the sea can be found whales, stellar sea lions, orcas, dolphins, otters, salmon, eagles, puffins and other sea birds.

Lodging

Kenai Fjords Glacier Lodge

The only lodging in the park is at the Kenai Fjords Glacier Lodge which is only accessible by boat from Seward. It is a full service wilderness lodge - room, meals, excursions etc are included. It is also very expensive.

Seward Windsong Lodge
The Seward Windsong Lodge, in the Exit Glacier area, which was very nice and relatively inexpensive.

There are other many other lodging options in Seward and you can find them on trip advisor. You can find cabins, B&B’s and plenty of standard hotel rooms.

Hiking

There are these two trails in the Exit Glacier area.

Exit Glacier trail

You can reach Exit Glacier via the Exit Glacier road which turns off the Seward Highway (Alaska route 9). The last 4 miles of this road is a graded gravel road which, if taken slowly and carefully, won’t be a problem for your rental car. From the end of the road it is an easy half mile walk to the glacier terminus.

Harding Ice Field Overlook

There is also a considerably more difficult (8-9 mile round trip) trail to the Harding Ice Field Overlook. The Ice Field spawns 40 glaciers, covers 1100 square miles of ice thousands of feet thick in places and is a spectacular sight. Beneath the ice is an actual mountain range. The trail climbs over 3000’ and is an all-day hike for the very fit and well-prepared.