Meng's Travels: Glaciers

A glacier is a river of frozen ice. It is said that Alaska has at least 10,000 glaciers, most of them unnamed. They are a popular attraction in Alaska. Click here to read more about glaciers.

When ice in a glacier recedes, the flooded valley becomes a fjord (pronounced f'yord).

The area around Seward is part of the Kenai Fjords National Park. It is a very big area and includes some very popular tourist areas. Many companies depend on tours to these areas for their businesses. I signed up for a 9-hour tour of the Northwestern Fjord with Kenai Fjord Tours. There were probably about 30 people on the boat. It starts from the harbor area of Seward, south through Resurrection Bay, and then out into the Gulf of Alaska. There are several fjords here. I don't know why the company picked Northwestern Fjord but the scenery and the wildlife on the way is simply amazing.

If the pictures below don't look as sharp as they should be, that's because it's been raining in Seward for the past 3 days. It's really hard to take good pictures when you are wet and the sun is not out. They were mostly taken with my iPhone, which also explains the lesser quality pictures than those taken with my Nikon DSLR camera.

Northwestern Fjord

Puffins on the cliff

Stella Seals

A Humpback Whale Diving

Waterfalls are all over the place

Beautiful Coves are everywhere

The next day I took a 30-minute shuttle to Exit Glacier. This is one of the few glaciers where you can get very close to it or even hike on it. The company that runs the shuttle offers hike on the glacier. I did not do that because I did the same thing in New Zealand, on the Franz Josef Glacier in South Island. You can read more about my hike on the Franz Josef Glacier. It was an excellent experience and if I had not done it before, I'd definitely do it.

I joined a Ranger Hike when I got to Exit Glacier. This is one of the excellent programs offered by the National Parks. You can find them at every National Park. You just have to find out when they have Ranger Hikes or Talks. They are both very informative and are usually free.

Our ranger took us on an hour and a half hike to the glacier. On the way she stopped at several places to explain about the glacier - the history, the science, the geology and how climate change has affected a lot of things in Alaska. The National Park Service is cutting back on carbon usage to protect the environment. At the end of the hike, we were left to enjoy the views of the glacier. If it was not raining, I'd have continue to hike up to the Harding Ice Field, which is like a frozen reservoir that feeds many glaciers in the area.