Alaska - Glacier Bay Wilderness Cruise Tours | from Sitka to Juneau

Cruise Alaska's Inside Passage and spend days exploring the area with it's massive tidewater glacier and icebergs, hike on backcountry wilderness trails with a professional guide, search for wildlife, observe whales at Icy Strait and kayak within the magnificent Muir, Tarr or Hopkins Inlets of Glacier Bay National Park.... these are the new redifined "Southeast Alaska Adventure Cruise Tours" This isn’t small ship cruising or big ship cruising. Fully-focused on the Luxury of Experience - quality over quantity, wildlife over nightlife, life changing encounters over momentary entertainment. Discover something special. Your yacht meanders through the largest national forest in the United States - home to grizzly bears, black bears, mountain goats, bald eagles and wolves. On your way to view Alaska's massive glaciers, we enter some of the world's deepest fjords to hike and kayak while other vessels' guests stay only shipside. In the still of the evening, watch bears ambling along wild shorelines. Everywhere in the swirling currents below, the world's largest mammals - the great whales, forage in bountiful waters along the sheltered Alaska coastline. We meet Super Natural Alaska and its wildlife at eye level for a vacation of a lifetime!

Journey to a place where the mountains rise from the sea and an ancient volcano waits patiently to be explored.  A place where the air is clean, the water clear, and thick forests flourish in foggy valleys.  Accessible by air or state ferry, discover the charming island community of Sitka Alaska on Baranof Island. Hidden deep within the spruce and hemlock rainforest that covers Baranof Island a diverse array of wildlife can be found.  Take a hike and search for the American bald eagle and Sitka's black-tailed deer, or visit the Fortress of the Bear and marvel at the wild beauty of the brown bear in an exhibit that replicates their natural habitat. Home to the magnificent humpback whale, sea lions, sea otters, and swarming with seabird rookeries; Sitka is also abundant with marine wildlife.  Nature lovers will appreciate the ocean-going charters and tours that provide an extraordinary opportunity to view some of the world's most spectacular sea creatures.  For the experience of a lifetime attend the Sitka Whalefest in November and celebrate Sitka's marine life with special activities and seminars hosted by renowned marine biologists. Nestled amongst the unparalleled natural splendor, Sitka boasts twenty-four attractions listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Learn about the ancestral home of the Kiksadi Tlingit Indians and delve into the rich heritage in the local museums housing rare archives and artifacts. Take a guided tour of the grand historic Bishop's House and be transported to the Russian colonial era.  Walk the site of the 1804 battlefield at Sitka National Historical Park or study the brightly painted totems along the coastal Totem Trail.  Stop by the Southeast Cultural Center's native arts workshop, and chat with woodcarvers, jewelry makers and other gifted artisans. For the most spectacular views take a Seaplane tour and see fantastic geological wonders such as the gaping crater of Mt. Edgecumbe.  Set off in search of excitement in a world class kayaking, ocean rafting, diving, snorkeling or underwater exploration adventure. Experience legendary fishing and challenge yourself to reel in some of the world's largest salmon and halibut at the popular Sitka Salmon Derby, which awards cash and prizes every year.  Tee off at Sea Mountain Golf Course and enjoy views of stunning Mount, and Harbor Mountain towering in the background.

Running 50 miles from Chatham Strait to Salisbury Sound, this haven for small boats is scenically highlighted by a very narrow connecting passageway called Sergius Narrows and an opening at Hoonah Sound. This historic and wildlife-rich waterway is a great place to explore the shoreline for bears, the waters for otters and whales, and to watch for eagles. The passage narrows to only 300 feet in one spot (24 feet deep.) After an adventurous, but “non-perilous” day, toast your voyage with a festive Farewell Dinner and a “photo journal” of your trip presented by your Expedition Leaders.

Meander along the spectacular waterfall coast of Chichagof Island. In the spirit of expedition, marvel at the grand scenery as our crew expertly guides you through unsung, glacier-carved fjords. Anchor in remote waters for an opportunity to lower the kayaks and skiffs. Enjoy another delectable dinner onboard and relax in the hot tub before calling it a day.

 

Today’s the ultimate day of exploration. Set your course for arguably the richest whale waters in Southeast Alaska.  Humpback whales come to Hoonah to feed on the nutrient rich waters of Glacier Bay and Icy Strait every summer in huge numbers before migrating south again in the winter. The whale population begins to arrive in Hoonah in May and stay through September. Humpback whales are large baleen whales that can reach over 50 feet in length and weigh as much as 30-50 tons. They are perhaps most famous for their whale songs, thought to be used by males as a mating call. You'll be able to observe and listen to these songs using a Hydrophone which is a brand new feature of our whale watching trips this year. Humpbacks are amazingly active and typical whale sightings will include diving, blows, and flukes (tails). Lucky whale-watchers may get to see breaching, bubble-net feeding, a cooperative feeding method where a pod forms a circle and dives under the water. They then blow air to create a wall of bubbles that force krill and plankton to the surface where the whales can eat them. Observing humpbacks practice bubble-net feeding is a real treat and a truly thrilling experience. Join the Captain on the bridge or go on deck with your Expedition Leader. Late afternoon, we’ll drop the skiffs and kayaks for closer inspection of the remote coastline with eyes set on shore for possible bear sightings. Keep watching for porpoise, sea lions, and other wildlife. This evening, take in the wilderness solitude while relaxing in the upper deck hot tub or enjoy a nightcap with your fellow yachtmates in the salon.With no binding agenda, today you’ll cruise along the waterfall coast of Chichagof Island. Marvel at the grand scenery of Alaska’s wilderness as the crew expertly guides you through those “not in the guide book” places known only to the locals. This evening, perhaps tucking away in magical Red Bluff Bay, there’ll be time for skiff operations and sea kayaking to look for sea otters and bears before calling it a day near Baranof Island.

Covering 3.3 million acres of rugged mountains, dynamic glaciers, temperate rainforest, wild coastlines, and deep sheltered fjords, Glacier Bay National Park is a highlight of Alaska's Inside Passage and part of a 25-million acre World Heritage Site-one of the world’s largest international protected areas. From summit to sea, Glacier Bay offers limitless opportunities for adventure and inspiration. Accompanied by a National Park Ranger, over the two days in the park you’ll travel nearly 60 miles cruising up-bay to the tidewater glaciers of Grand Pacific and Margerie, which frequently calve huge icebergs into the bay. If conditions permit, we'll lower the inflatable and weave among the icebergs that have fallen from the face of the glaciers. Enjoy evenings at anchor in hidden coves, and mornings paddling your kayak in the quiet of this majestic wilderness. And what will we find? Here in the bay there are puffins and sea lions, mountain goats and bears, moose, eagles, and scenery more spectacular than any place on earth. Glacier Bay is at its best when explored by small groups over the course of two days to hike and kayak inside the bay and wilderness areas.

We are exploring a waterway that was under a river of ice only 250 years ago. A National Park Ranger will be onboard to help spot wildlife, provide commentary and programs to help passengers understand and appreciate Glacier Bay National Park. Be sure to have binoculars ready and rain gear handy so you can be outside to greet each new discovery! Sea Lions at South Marble Island. One of the first highlights of the day is a stop at South Marble Island. The vessel cruises very close to the small isolated island to observe seabirds and marine mammals. Be sure you are outside to see, hear and even smell the creatures that live here. Tufted and Horned Puffins and their cousins the Common Murre nest here alongside Pelagic Cormorants and Black-legged Kittiwakes. Steller Sea Lions haul out here between feeding because of the convenient location, flat, smooth rocks, and nearby feeding grounds. There may be over 300 sea lions clustered on the rocks together, growling and roaring as they wrestle for the best resting spot. Mountain Goats are found on steep mountian sides. As you continue toward the glaciers, you can scan the beach for black bear, grizzly bear, moose, and wolves. Watch along any barren mountainsides for the white coats of the mountain goats that scale precarious cliff edges. Most of this terrestrial wildlife returned recently to this landscape, recolonizing after the retreat of the glaciers that began only two-and-a-half centuries before. Mountain goats, however, may have lived on the lonely peaks that jutted above the rivers ice that flowed in Glacier Bay.

Worldwide, the glacial facts are staggering. Glaciers and polar ice store more water than lakes and rivers, groundwater, and the atmosphere combined. Ten percent of our world is under ice today, equaling the percent being farmed. If the world's ice caps thawed completely, sea level would rise enough to inundate half of the world's cities. The Greenland and Antarctic ice caps are 2 miles thick. Alaska is four percent ice. Glaciers form because snowfall in the high mountains exceeds snowmelt. The snowflakes first change to granular snow, round ice grains, but the accumulating weight soon presses it into solid ice. Eventually, gravity sets the ice mass flowing downslope at up to seven feet per day. The park includes some 12 tidewater glaciers that calve into the bay. The show can be spectacular. As water undermines some ice fronts great blocks of ice up to 200 feet high break loose and crash into the water. Johns Hopkins Glacier calves such volumes of ice that it is seldom possible to approach its ice cliffs closer than about two miles. The glaciers seen here today are remnants of a general ice advance, the Little Ice Age, that began about 4,000 years ago. This advance in no way approached the extent of continental glaciation during Pleistocene time. The Little Ice age reached its maximum extent here about 1750, when general melting began. Today's advance or retreat of a glacier snout reflects many factors: snowfall rate, topography, and climate trends. Glacial retreat continues today on the bay's east and southwest sides, but on its west side several glaciers are advancing. The snowcapped Fairweather Range supplies ice to all glaciers on the peninsula separating Glacier Bay from the Gulf of Alaska. Mount Fairweather, the range's highest peak, stands at 15,320 feet. Near Johns Hopkins Inlet, several peaks rise from sea level to 6,520 feet within just 4 miles of shore. The great glaciers of the past carved these fjords, or drowned valleys, out of the mountains like great troughs. Landslides help widen the troughs as the glaciers remove the bedrock support on upper slopes. Huge icebergs may last a week or more, and they provide perches for bald eagles, cormorants, and gulls. Close by, kayakers have heard the stress and strain of melting: water drips, air bubbles pop, and cracks develop. Colors betray a berg's nature or origin. White bergs hold many trapped air bubbles. Blue bergs are dense. Greenish-blackish bergs may have calved off glacier bottoms. Dark-striped brown bergs carry morainal rubble from the joining of tributary glaciers or other sources. How high a berg floats depends upon its size, the ice's density, and the water's density. Bergs may be weighed down, submerged even, by rock and rubble. A modest looking berg may suddenly loom enormous, and endanger small craft, when it rolls over. Keep in mind that what you see is "just the tip of the iceberg."