Our tour at our first night anchorage in front of Aialik Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.

I have had a number of inquires, and can now finally say I have my dates for next summers overnight photo tour into Kenai Fjords National Park!

This was our boat at anchor the first night of last years tour.  The boat will look a little different next year thanks to the addition of a second sleeping cabin to the back half – although I’m not increasing the number of participants, so this should give everyone a bit more room and privacy.

Let me tell you a bit about last years tour to give you an idea as to how amazing this trip is.  On the first day, we spent some time with a group of sea otters and then we explored along the coast getting up-close to waterfalls and amazing pinnacle rock and arch formations before finally running into a group of humpbacks   We spent a fair amount of time with the humpbacks, then broke away for some harbor seals and finally a nice pod of dolphin – the dolphins played in our bow wave for a pretty long time.  Later that day we checked out the action at Holgate Glacier, an active tide water glacier, before deciding to anchor for the evening in front of Aialik Glacier – this evening we spotted a black bear on shore and saw some huge calving events on the face of the glacier including one of the biggest ones I have ever seen!  That is the beauty of spending time in such an amazing place!  No one wanted to go to bed in case they might miss something.

The next morning we went to shore and explored a number of lagoons and open fields where we not only saw a number of eagles, but were able to photograph a nice black bear.  After going back to the boat for a warm lunch, we motored over to the Northwestern Fjords where our captain placed the bow of the boat at the bottom of a waterfall – an amazing waterfall that tumbled in multiple places down a 1,000 shear granite wall!  We spent the night well in the Northwestern Fjord in direct site of a couple dramatic glaciers.

For the third day we went out to the Chiswell Islands and photographed puffin and other sea birds.  We took a detour thanks to a report of orcas, but weren’t able to find them.  But we did see a number of sea lion rookeries and haul outs, more eagles and sea otters, as we cut across and worked our way along the dramatic coastline of the East shore of Resurrection Bay.

Every trip will be a bit different thanks in part to our Captain and his many many years of boating /leading tours and working with wildlife researchers in the area.  He will be in touch with the other day tour boats so we will have a good feel for where the wildlife is at any given time – but, we can enjoy it in the nice evening and morning light when all the people are gone!

You can learn much more about this trip on our Kenai Fjords National Park Photo Tour page.  Last year this tour didn’t fill until spring, but given how much faster the bear photo tours filled this year (they filled in about a month despite more then doubling the number), I wouldn’t wait.  If you have more questions, feel free to send us an email or give us a call.