Kenai Fjords

Kenai Fjords protects a range of coastal mountains that are, quite literally, slowly sinking into the ocean, their former glacial valleys transformed into the long, steep-walled fjords that give the park its name. More than half of the park's total area lies buried under the Harding Icefield, the largest icefield entirely within the United States, thick enough in places to exceed a mile, with only the very tops of mountain peaks, called nunataks, breaking through the surface.

Exit Glacier is the only part of the park reachable by road, and its retreat has been dramatic enough that trail markers along the approach show, year by year, how much further back the ice has pulled since the early 2000s. Beyond Exit Glacier, the rest of the park is reached almost entirely by boat, with tour operators in Seward running day trips into Resurrection Bay and the fjords beyond to see tidewater glaciers calve into the sea alongside whales, sea otters, and sea lions.

Come for the boat tour into the fjords, the only realistic way most visitors experience this park's true scale. Stay to hike the Harding Icefield Trail if your legs and weather allow it. Read the story, book the boat ahead, and when you leave, mark it visited.