Kenai Fjords National Park: A Marriage of Ice & Sea
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In the south of Alaska, at the southern edge of Kenai Peninsula, the Kenai Fjords face out on the world and greet the Gulf of Alaska with frozen rivers and jagged, slate-grey cliffs. Streams of glowing remnants of the Ice Age stretch back from the granite wall of Kenai Fjords and crawl inland, joining together ice and sea. Here, at this remarkable meeting point, lies Harding Icefield, a 700-square-mile ocean of glacier nearly one-mile thick in places.
How to see the Kenai Fjords
To witness Harding Icefield, one need only travel to the quaint town of Seward, Alaska, and hop on a 9-hour excursion boat ride. Once you reach Harding, you’ll discover ice flows that serve as safe havens for seals, as well as rocky cliffs and glaciers–the resting places of herds of sea lions. Visitors of this miraculous portion of Kenai Fjords National Park will learn why the park boasts one of the largest populations of puffins on Earth, and what makes Kenai Fjords such a spectacular sanctuary for a wide array of other birds.
If you aren’t willing to take the long journey out to Harding, you can find other of Kenai Fjords’ masterpiece glaciers a little closer by at Resurrection Bay, which is only a four-hour boat ride. This stretch of water and rock is the nearest accessible fjord at Seward. And there is also Exit Glacier, which juts out of the rocks 12 miles from Seward. This famous glacier is in a constant state of receding, as it has been melting for centuries and shrinking back into the mountains. A number of trails skirt Exit Glacier and can be followed to catch glimpses of the dripping glacier from a variety of unique viewpoints.
If you’ve yet to witness a seemingly endless bed of glaciers or sunbathing sea lions up close and personal, Kenai Fjords National Park is waiting to help you check an item off your bucket list!
In a first visit to Kenai Fjords, one's eyes are drawn to its glowing blue ice, a relic of the Ice Age. Kenai Fjords National Park is a dazzling marriage of ice and sea. This park is located at the edge of the Kenai Peninsula. 40 glaciers flow from its ice field, carving the jagged coastline. Fog scrims the cliffs and coves. Cascading waters drizzle the heights. A coastal wilderness, where sheer slate gray cliffs rise from the sea to form the rocky spine of the Kenai Peninsula. Forests of conifers cling to the slopes. Sea otters patrol the frigid waters. Atop these mile-high mountains spread the Harding Icefield, some 700 square miles of ice, nearly a mile thick, a gargantuan remnant of an ancient ice field that once had covered much of Southern Alaska. Today, glaciers radiate from its stockpile of ice and snow, flowing down-slope toward the sea. Glaciers are rivers, rivers of H2O in a solid, rather than a liquid state. Rivers of ice. Only one tongue of the Icefield is accessible by car, Exit Glacier. A shrinking glacier. Its frozen snout is slowly retreating into the mountains. Here, trails, a network of them, skirt the ice, Edge of the Glacier, Glacier View, and Toe of Glacier trails, serving up intimate views of nature's mighty carving tool. A dozen miles by road from Exit Glacier, Seward, one of Alaska's oldest and most charming towns. A Working fishing port and home to a fleet of excursion boats. Dress warm. The sea air is bracing. Resurrection Bay, the gateway to Seward and its closest fjord. A four-hour excursion. It's a nine-hour trip to Northwestern Fjord and its Tidewater glaciers, icy arms of the Harding Icefield that reach the sea, spectacularly framed by mountains. Creaking and groaning, glaciers moving relentlessly down to the sea, where they have massive chunks of ice into the frigid waters. Ice flows are havens for seals. Females give birth there. Sea lions crowd the offshore islands. Males are nearly twice the size of females and weigh up to half a ton. Kenai Fjords National Park is also a bird sanctuary. Guillemots, gulls, kittiwakes, hundreds of thousands of them nest along the rocky cliffs of the peninsula and on the islands farther off the coast. Puffins thrive here. These sturdy birds are underwater hunters. They can bring up as many as 10 fish at a time in their brightly-colored bills. Alaska is home to the world's largest puffin population. Remarkable wildlife and an astounding convergence of mountains, ice, and ocean. It is Kenai Fjords National Park legacy.
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