Glacier Bay National Park, AK June 2023

National Park Count: 34

Hey there adventurers! I am a little behind on my posts! There will (hopefully) be a slew of them coming up! Today I begin with the day trip tour the sidekick and I took to Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska earlier this summer! This marks my 34th National Park and my 4th, of 8, Alaskan park. This park is mostly inaccessible and you are not going to find trails or many *easy* activities at all. If you want to see the park you must do it by boat or plane. If you want to *really* see the park, some people take a kayak trip for a few days, camping along the shore as they go. Some people stay at the lodge and do some smaller private charters into the bay. We flew in from Juneau for the day to do the catamaran tour offered by the Glacier Bay Lodge inside the park.

Before sharing the highlights I want to definitely plug Alaska Seaplanes, TLC Taxi, and Glacier Bay Lodge and Tours! Most people who experience this National Park do so from the comfort of a large cruise liner as part of a much longer cruise trip through Alaska’s Inner Passage (Note: only certain cruises are allowed by the NPS to enter the National Park, so plan accordingly if you do this). The day I was scheduled to do this day trip ended up being a total rain out. While en route to Juneau, the Sidekick strongly suggested I do my damnedest to reschedule as the days after were all forecast to be awesome. I was going to be doing this on my own, but with how nice the future weather looked, she decided to also come along. Alaska Seaplanes had no problem at all changing the day of my flight. Due to timing, we had to fly one way with them and fly Alaska Airlines back (using points meant free and easy rebooking with Alaska). The Lodge charged me a small 10 percent rebooking fee for the cruise, but that was it (note that this was only possible being more than 72 hours out), and TLC Taxi was able to squeeze me into the new date. The reason the taxi situation was pretty important was due to this guy being the ONLY ride option, the flight options in and out of the town of Gustavus are close to the cruise times, and the “airport” to the cruise boat is about a 30 minute drive…so all pieces needed to work, and they did!

We were in Juneau first, and booked this day trip from there. The tour was 8 hours, the entire trip about 12 hours altogether. The tour cost was average for an Alaskan excursion- about $250 a person. The flight out on Alaska Seaplanes was another $200-ish a person. Miles on Alaska Airlines coming back made that flight free…but I think the cost was like $169 or something if paying dollars. The taxi was about 50 bucks a person round trip. The flight to Gustavus, 60 or so air miles away, was about 30 minutes on an Alaska Seaplanes 8 seater. This being the middle of nowhere Alaska, the only way is by air or, much longer, by boat. The flight was great – beautiful scenery, of course, and soon enough we were back on the ground. Gustavus is the gateway town for the national park boasting a population of about 600. The roads are surprisingly paved and there are *some* services in the town, but generally speaking, it’s a remote town with little life comforts, and that’s ok, we didn’t need that. After deplaning, the driver was waiting at the airport for us and we made it to the boat dock about an hour or so before departure time.

After a good 30 minutes waiting on the dock, suffering the wrath of Alaska’s state bird (the deet was safely stored back in Juneau…), we were on the boat and off on the cruise. Of course I was stoked – this being another National Park visit! At the moment, the National Park Service only allows this one operator to do this large scale tour, so it is the only option to see the park unless you are looking for a private charter. The weather was AMAZING but I was a bit disappointed that the catamaran only had outdoor standing areas on the back of the vessel, and the top deck giving the 360 degree views is only utilized sparingly, when the vessel is sitting. That being the case, the windows on the vessel were large and mostly uninterrupted and the views were still good.

Glacier Bay is the same story as most of the world’s glacial areas: melting and retreating. Only a mere 200 or so years ago natives left the Gustavus area due to the ice being a problem for them. Now, the glacier that carved the bay is some 70 miles north. That is the destination of the tour. Upon setting out the views and scenery are spectacular! At one point the ranger pointed out that Mt. Fairweather was visible and they hadn’t seen it in weeks. This mountain marks the boundary of the US and Canada, is part of the National Park, and is 15,300ish feet in elevation making it the 7th highest peak in the United States! I also got a great view of it from the dock later in the day! Also, the wildlife viewing was awesome! We saw many whales, puffins, golden seals, mountain goats, sea otters, and tons of other birds, including some eagles.

The trip up the bay took 3 or 4 hours and once we got to the end of the bay we saw the extent of the glacial retreat. From our vantage point here 2 glaciers were visible. The main draw now is the Margerie Glacier which is the beautiful white and blue tidewater glacier that still reaches the water, coming in from the west. The bay, however, was carved by the Grand Pacific Glacier. This one is also here at the perpendicular, coming from the north However, the ranger on the ship informed us that it has retreated so much that essentially is no longer reaches the bay and the glacier we were actually looking at is one called Ferris, which used to flow into the Grand Pacific but now the entire ice front that is visible is this one. This glacier is dirty and rocky, looking little like the ubiquitous glacier view and more like a dirty levy. The glacial retreat here is shocking and we were informed that it has happened so fast that the land here is rebounding upward at 30 plus mm a year, the fastest of any place on earth. It was mentioned that there is a spot near the docks that used to be at mean sea level in the middle of the last century but is now 5 feet above mean sea level, 75 ish years later.

Overall Impressions: Beautiful and awesome place! But, more of a hassle and pricier for an experience that can be very similarly had with a lot less hassle and a lot less expense only a few hundred miles away at Kenai Fjords. The NPS is keeping this place pristine and untouched and that’s a great thing! But there are also very few things to do other than this boat tour unless you want to tackle the kayak camping option.

The Adventurer’s Rating: 3.5 Arrowheads!