Wilderness Wandering

When I started planning for this park, I didn’t know anything about it! What I now know, is it should not be missed! Glacier Bay covers 3.3 million acres of rugged mountains, dynamic glaciers, temperate rainforest, and deep fjords. It is part of Alaska’s Inside Passage. It is not accessible by road, only air and water.

Day 21, August 12,2025

We took an Uber to the airport and flew to Juneau. We changed planes and flew 14 minutes to Gustavus, Gus – STAVE-us which is the nearest town to Glacier Bay National Park. We took off at 4:06 PM and landed at 4:19. Gustavus is really tiny. There are 60 students in their K-12 school.

There was a large group of us. Yesterday’s flight from Juneau to Gustavus was cancelled due to fog. There is only one commercial flight each way per day. Our lodge bus driver was a great guy. He stopped at the National Park sign and everyone lined up and handed him our phones and he took our pictures with the entrance sign. That was really nice because the sign is miles from the lodge. We learned that 90% of visitors to Glacier Bay National Park never set foot on land. They arrive via cruise ship and cruise in the waters but never leave the boat.  We arrived at the lodge and a young woman came out with everyone’s keys so we didn’t have to stand in line.

We dropped off our luggage in our room and went back to the lodge to have dinner. The lodge is rustic, but not as rustic as some of the places we’ve stayed. We have our own bathroom!!  We split delicious halibut tacos.

After dinner we strolled down to the pier. It was warm, sunny and beautiful.  We watched a sea otter for quite a long while.  Then we went back to our room and turned in because we want to get up for sunrise tomorrow. 

Day 22, August 13,2025

Woke up at 5 AM to see sunrise. We left the room and walked to the water and could see nothing but fog.

We DID see the Huna Tribal House and saw some totem poles a woodcarver is working on.

We went back to bed for a while. We were renting kayaks for the day to explore the waters of Glacier Bay National Park. We walked down to the dock at 9:00 to meet the kayak person. It was still extremely foggy and she said it wasn’t safe to go out because boats wouldn’t be able to see us. She asked us to come back at 11:00. Tim went to have breakfast. I walked the trail through the campground and did a little exploring. The dew on the plants was spectacular!

The kayak person said we could borrow boots if we wanted so I went to get some boots to tide pool because it was right around low tide at 9:45. I walked up to get the boots and Tim and the rest of the people were getting ready to go out. Since there’s no cell service, I didn’t get the message that they moved the launch time up. So I quickly took the things I needed out of my back pack and put them in a dry bag and put my rain pants on. I lost my rain coat in the airport yesterday, so she leant me a rain coat. Because Tim was too tall for the back of the kayak, I had to steer. She adjusted the foot pedals and gave me a quick lesson on how to steer using the rudder. The fog was starting to lift, but it was still foggy. She told us to go left down Bartlett Bay and stick close to shore. Tim and I did that. The other folks did not. We were seeing a few otters and some fish that were jumping in the air.

We paddled for about two hours. We were crossing the bay and hearing all these loud noises. We both thought they sounded like whales spouting, but we weren’t seeing any. Then we did see some spouts! We think there were three humpback whales close to us based on spouting we observed. Then one surfaced REALLY close to us! It was within 50 feet, but my camera wasn’t ready. I was able to get a tail flip from one of them. It was incredible being that close and on the same level to these huge whales!

Glacier Bay has tidal swings of up to 25 feet making them the second largest variation in tides in the U.S. We decided to turn back after the whales. We did have some current to battle on the way back. We were near shore on our way back when we noticed a black bear on shore just before we entered Bartlett Cove. It was fun watching it from a safe distance. It was sort of digging for something in the rocks on shore.

We paddled from 9:45 to 5:49! After we finished putting our paddling things away, we went and had a drink on the deck and had dinner. We talked with a really nice young family from Telluride. They did the boat tour that day. They didn’t get very close to the wildlife. We got to see humpback whales, sea otters, sea lions, bald eagles, porpoises, and a black bear. Quite a day! We went back and showered and changed and went to sleep. 

Day 23, August 14,2025

Boy! Did we sleep! We woke up to a sunny morning. We showered and packed and dropped our bags at the front desk. We walked down to a VC to stamp the passport and we borrowed a canister of bear spray. We walked the Barrett River Trail – 4.5 miles fairly easy trail through a gorgeous rain forest landscape to the mouth of a river. The trail was very boggy. The park service had a lot of planks on the trail to raise you above the muck. The planks had nets over them to give you more traction on the wet wood. We had never seen this before, but it made our footing much more secure!

We saw more mushrooms than we have ever seen anywhere else.

We saw very few other people. We returned our bears spray and walked to the lodge for lunch. Tim enjoyed his huckleberry lemonade very much. After lunch we walked to the Huna House Tribal Lodge and then I needed Tim to see how gorgeous the campground was! He was extremely impressed like I was. We walked back via the beach and saw a guy on his knees looking at seaweed. We asked what he was doing. He was an entomologist from the University of Alaska- Fairbanks who is studying the insects that live in the park.

After that, it was time to gather our luggage and board the school bus to return to Gustavus for our 14 minute flight to Juneau. 

We were very impressed with this park! I would have enjoyed one more day there! The diversity and availability of wild life, the compactness of the activities – (the lodge, walks, visitor center and pier were all a really short walk and most were handicap accessible), and the beauty of the landscape really made this park memorable!