Kenai Fjords National Park Day Trip | Seward Township

US National Park, Alaska

Kenai Fjords National Park

Kenai Fjords National ParkLocated on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska, the park mainly protects the Harding Icefield, a very large ice field with rich glacier resources and marine and terrestrial ecology. The national park covers a wide area, including about 40 glaciers. If you want to visit Kenai Fjords National Park, most of the glaciers need to be viewed from the sea, and the only one that can be reached by land is Exit Glacier, located near the small town of Seward.

For general tourists who come to Kenai Fjords National Park, they can arrange one or two days, one day to go to Exit Glacier area for a walk, and the other day to arrange a sea glacier tour, and take a stroll around Seward. Most people drive from Anchorage along AK-1 to the nearest town, Seward, which is also a scenic road with beautiful scenery.

We stayed in Seward for two days on this Alaska trip. The first day's itinerary was a day trip to Kenai Fjords National Park, which consisted of a morning overland walk to Exit Glacier, and an afternoon ocean walk to attend theMajor Marine TourGoing to see wildlife and glaciers. The second day of the trip was spent traveling byDog sledding at IdidaRide.. All of these locations are in the Seward neighborhood and are great for arranging together.

Exit Glacier

The Exit Glacier entrance is conveniently located right next to Seward, and with its well-planned trails, it is the most accessible glacier in Alaska. It takes only 10 minutes to drive from Seward to Exit Glacier, and you can see it in front of you soon after you leave Seward city center. In front of the trail is a visitor center, which introduces the formation and types of glaciers. It is hard to forget all this knowledge when you walk around a few more visitor centers in Alaska.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 1
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 2

Exit Glacier has two trails, the visitor center next to the entrance, the left is a simple glacier view trail, around a circle is 0.5 mile, do not need to climb the mountain, wheelchair accessible Glacier View, if you just want to look at the glacier spectacular view of the time is not too much time, take a simple loop can be. If you just want to see the glacier view and have more time, you can take the simple loop. On the right side, you can go all the way down to Exit Glacier Overlook Trail, you can climb all the way up to the viewpoint to see the edge of the glacier.

Exit Glacier Overlook Trail

Because of the experience of unstable weather in the previous days, we started with the Exit Glacier Overlook Trail which is about 2 miles round trip and it is moderately difficult to climb all the way to the glacier. The Exit Glacier Overlook Trail is about 2 miles back and forth, it can go all the way to the glacier, and is moderately difficult. The Harding Icefield Trail, which is 8 miles back and forth, can be climbed all the way to the top of the glacier to see the Harding Icefield, but it is more difficult to climb up to the Harding Icefield and it will take 8 hours to go back and forth, so we decided to go with the Overlook Trail.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 3
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 4
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 5
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 6
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 7

In fact, the first half of this trail is not very difficult, although it still takes a little physical effort, but slowly walking will not be a problem, and the weather is cool, walking does not feel tired. The view from the hill was particularly spectacular, and there were many beautiful flowers and grasses just popping up along the way.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 8
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 9
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 10
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 11
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 12
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 13

About 2/3 of the way to the Exit Glacier, we saw a big boulder on the roadside, we climbed up to see the edge of the glacier clearly. We could see the glacier hikers up there. Don't look at this seems to be just walking on a piece of ice seems to be very easy, in fact, climbing the glacier is not very easy, close look at the terrain is actually very rugged. If you are interested in glacier hiking, you can find a guide to bring you there.

Kenai Fjords National Park Exit Glacier Seward
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 14
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 15
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 16
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 17
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 18

Above the Exit Glacier is the Harding Icefield, which can be seen from the Edge of Glacier at the Observation Deck, just a little bit ahead. If you have eight hours to spare, the Harding Icefield Trail will take you all the way up this large icefield, which is so large that there are several glaciers extending out from the Exit Glacier.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 19
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 20
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 21
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 22
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 23

Exit Glacier View Trail

After descending the mountain, we went back to walk the Glacier view trail, which is a 1-mile loop around the glacier, where the Toe of the glacier, the exit of the glacier, could be seen in its entirety. Because of the rapid retreat of the glacier, we couldn't see the full Toe in 2014, but the picture on the signboard showed that it was still visible in 2007.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 24
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 25
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 26

Major Marine Tour | Bear Glacier

All the other glaciers in Kenai Fjord National Park are on the sea, so you have to join the sea boat tour to see them. This time, we chose to join theMajor Marine TourThe trip from Seward. For fear of getting seasick, I chose the inland sea route only. The only glacier in this route is the Bear glacier, which is themed on marine ecology and has picturesque scenery along the way. If you want to see more glacier scenery, you can take the offshore route. In addition, you can buy buffet all-you-can-eat dinner rolls at a higher price. The food is not bad, but the variety of food is limited.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 27
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 28
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 29
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 30
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 31
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 32
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 33
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 34
Bear Glacier
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 35
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 36
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 37

We saw a lot of animals on the eco-trip, we saw Humpback whale, bald eagle, tons of jellyfish, endangered sea lion, lots and lots of seabirds on the boat... Unfortunately, the photos on the boat were only taken from afar, so there were not many good ones.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 38
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 39
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 40

Kenai Fjords National Park Accommodation | Seward Townships

Seward is the town that you must pass through if you want to visit Kenai Fjords National Park. Most of the tourists who come to Kenai Fjords National Park will choose to stay at least one night in Seward. There is also a Kenai Fjords visitor center in the town, which you can also visit.

Seward is actually named after William Seward, who led the U.S. to buy Alaska from Russia in 1867, which is quite a history, and the town itself is actually worth a stroll, with many interesting monuments in the downtown area. If you have time, you can also visit the aquarium. We made a complete circle around the town. On the map, we saw a waterfall at the east end of the town, so we made a special detour to check it out, but it was only a small waterfall, and the way to get there was unpaved, so we didn't have to make a special trip.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 41
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 42
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 43
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 44
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 45
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 46

The most beautiful part of Alaska is the harbor. If you are on a boat, you will come to Seward Resurrection bay harbor, the scenery here is quite beautiful.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 47
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 48

Find Seward Accommodation Comparison

Hotels | Van Glider Hotel

Our accommodation in Seward was the Van Glider hotel, which is a monument in its own right, as you can see from the furnishings of the rooms. The cheapest room shared the outside bathroom with another room, and the room itself was relatively small, so there was no walking space after putting the suitcases, but after a long day of traveling, this small room was already very comfortable. Although the bathroom was shared, it was actually quite clean.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 49
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 50
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 51
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 52
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 53
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 54
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 55

Seward cuisine | Chinook restaurant

In Seward, we decided to eat better, so we went to this seafood restaurant, Chinook restaurant, the quality of the food is not bad, we ordered king crab, scallop, and their salmon special, another big plus is the view is very good, sitting in the window, you can see the sea view of the pier.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 56
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 57
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 58
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 59
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 60
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 61
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 62
Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit glacier, Seward, Major Marine Tour, Van Glider Hotel 63

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