National Park #19: Kenai Fjords and Seward, AK

After an amazing few days in Homer & Katmai National Park on the Kenai Peninsula, we spent the night at Peterson Lake along the Sterling Highway. We also got our first up close experience with a moose on the side of the road. Everyone in Alaska talked about the unpredictable nature of moose and their territorial behavior. The tactic to deal with moose on the hiking trail is to run away and hike so they don’t see you. Luckily we didn’t see any on the trail. I hung around the one below for about 30 seconds from 25 yards away and then hopped back into the RV.

In the morning, we drove a few hours to explore Seward and the Kenai Fjords National Park, a park that can and should be experienced from land and water. We were lucky enough to do both on this trip.

We started our exploration of Kenai Fjords on the water with a four-hour cruise around Resurrection Bay that had us view glaciers, marine life and other wildlife from the boat. There are a few companies running cruise tours ranging from 4-8 hours. With the longer tours, you get to see some more remote glaciers and potentially different wildlife, but it becomes a long day on the water. Our four-hour tour with Major Marine was the perfect amount of time for us as it allowed for some additional exploration and relaxing.

We came across a few YouTube videos of people taking these cruises, and they all said how cold and windy it could get while the boat was moving and the rainforest climate was unpredictable. We packed our winter coats, hats, gloves, and got some rain pants for the girls to help reduce the wind on their legs. Overall, we were lucky we had the right gear. Even with temperatures in the mid-60s, it felt pretty cold at times.

As soon we pulled away from the dock, our captain started calling out the wildlife on the PA system – eagles and puffins, followed shortly by a mountain goat and her kid. They were climbing around on an extremely steep cliff that looked like it had no footholds.

After some more cruising , our captain spotted some humpback whales that were being followed by a flock of seagulls. It ended up being a group of doing a thing called “bubble netting” where one swims circles underwater to confuse and trap a school of herring. Then all the whales come swimming up from the bottom with mouths wide open to catch as many fish as possible. This phenomenon is relatively new to marine biologists and was a real treat to see in real life. We saw them do it about 4 times as they made their way around the bay.

As we continued to explore in the Bay, we saw sea lions and seals basking on rocks, mountain goats, otters, and many types of birds, including puffins that looked like they were running on the water. The girls made some friends and were exploring the boat on a scavenger hunt activity to find certain animals while on our cruise. There was actually a staff member whose job was to engage the children with this game so they could better enjoy the experience.

Our first evening in Seward had us boondocking along the Resurrection River just outside of Seward in a section of the braided river where there were about 15 other campers and RVs spaced out over a half mile. We were able to explore and play along the slower moving streams. I mean, what a night – a glacier fed river in front of us and a gorgeous mountain range behind us while we made dinner and relaxed.

After a night of great sleep, we got up and immediately drove into the visitor center of Kenai Fjords near Exit Glacier because we were not sure how big the parking lot was and how many RV sized spots existed. We ended up being one of the first four cars in the lot, parked the RV, and cooked some breakfast. That might be one of the best features on an RV – being able to get to your final destination and then you can get the food you need, making the drive easier with less traffic on the road.

Our plan was to hike all the way to the Harding Icefield and explore. It would be an eight-mile roundtrip hike with nearly 3,000 feet of elevation gain. It had incredible views of the icefield that feeds many glaciers throughout the park. We read about this hike in the The National Parks Coast to Coast book. Upon arriving to the visitor center, we found out the top half of the hike was closed due to avalanche warnings, so we scaled our hike to go to the Top of the Cliffs for some great views. The hike up was amazing, starting off in the dense forest and then opening up to meadows and rocks and snow. We saw a coyote in one of the meadows and then a few marmots snooping around looking for snacks. At Top of the Cliffs, there were some great spots to have lunch and enjoy the massive Harding Icefield, which is over 700 square miles in size and spawns off over 40 glaciers.

Mary and Quincy decided to have some fun in the snow on the way down and glissaded on some snow banks. We finished off our hike to a viewpoint that let us see Exit Glacier. The National Parks service was really smart to monitor the size of the glacier over time. As you hike around the Exit Glacier and as you drive out of the park, they have signs showing a year and that represents where the glacier terminated at that year. Sadly, it has receded a considerable amount since they started tracking it in the early 1900s.

After leaving the park, we stopped by a KOA campground to pay $20 to dump our wastewater tanks and then refill our fresh water. We could go about 4-5 days if we used our water and waste tanks efficiently. We became really good at taking “navy showers” turning the water on and off when needed. We finished off our time in Seward with a trip to the laundromat and some food at a local Mexican restaurant for some reindeer sausage burritos. We drove out of Seward and camped just south of Anchorage along the Seward Highway

Looking back on the trip, everyone had a favorite part:

Leona: Taking the cruise and seeing the whales do the bubble netting.

Quincy: Playing the animal search game while on the cruise made us look for lots of different animals and we found the red-legged Kittiwake, which is not one people always find!

Mary: Same as Leona- the bubble-netting. We lucked out because the captain said they had only seen it a few times before during the entire tour season.

Sean: Hiking to the Top of the Cliffs was amazing. We got to the end of our hike, plopped down our backpacks and had a lunch overlooking a sea of ice.

Next stop: Denali National Park!