United States
Kenai Fjords
Exit Glacier retreating in real time; the trail markers show where it stood each decade.
The year markers tell the story before you reach the ice. Each sign stands where Exit Glacier's face once towered, and the gaps between them widen decade by decade. At the terminus the glacier groans, a low percussive sound that travels through the gravel under your boots.
Kenai Fjords is where glacial retreat becomes something you walk through: Exit Glacier has pulled back more than a mile since the early 1800s, and the park has posted year-labelled markers along the approach so the timeline is under your feet. Above it spreads the Harding Icefield, seven hundred square miles of ice and the largest icefield entirely within the United States, feeding nearly forty glaciers down every side. Boat tours out of Seward run beneath the tidewater faces, and the cold fjord water carries orcas, humpbacks, sea otters, Steller sea lions and rafts of puffins; sightings are frequent, never guaranteed, which is what makes them sightings. Seward itself, the little harbour town at the head of Resurrection Bay, is joined to Anchorage by one of the great coastal rail journeys.
Couple
Take the coastal train down, board a fjord boat for the glacier faces and let the whales decide whether to make the anniversary.
Friends
Kayak beneath the tidewater ice or grind up the Harding Icefield Trail, then split dockside halibut in Seward while the derby boats weigh in.
Family
The year markers on the glacier trail turn climate science into a walk children genuinely understand, and puffins do the rest.
- Exit Glacier's trail is lined with year markers standing exactly where the ice face once reached, a walkable timeline of retreat.
- The Harding Icefield, largest entirely within US borders, feeds nearly forty glaciers from seven hundred square miles of ice.
- Boat tours from Seward pass tidewater glacier faces while orcas, humpbacks and puffins work the same cold water.
- Resurrection Bay's silver-salmon derby is one of Alaska's oldest and largest, and the harbour fills for it each August.
Halibut and chips at a Seward dockside window between boat tours, fried while the boats unload more.
Silver salmon in derby season, when one of Alaska's oldest fishing contests fills Resurrection Bay with hopeful boats.
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