2020 Kenai Fjords Weekend Adventure

What: Jam-packed weekend with a cruise, whales, glaciers, and sled dogs

Dates: Thursday, August 6 – Saturday, August 8, 2020 (leads into the bear-viewing trip beginning 8/8)

Cost: $3,500 per person (or $2,900 for those also going on the adjacent bear-viewing trip)

Includes transportation to and from Anchorage airport, lodging by the harbor in Seward off Resurrection Bay (no single-supplement fee!), a 6-hour cruise into Kenai Fjords National Park with salmon and rib eye lunch buffet, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, a visit to Exit Glacier, dogsledding rides, and more. We prefer payment by check to keep our rates low: please email [email protected] to let us know if you’re sending payment by check to Wild Departures, 709 Baseline Road, Boulder, CO 80302 so we hold your spot!

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Join Alaska Magazine photographer and senior editor, Michelle Theall, for the weekend of a lifetime in spectacular Kenai Fjords National Park. Kenai Fjords is home to orcas, humpbacks, calving glaciers, and some of the most exceptionally picturesque scenery in the world. Guests have the opportunity to shadow Michelle as she photographs this iconic destination, while learning the tips and tricks for capturing phenomenal images.

Itinerary:

8/6-Arrive in Anchorage before 2pm to be picked up by Wild Departures and whisked away on a 3-hour drive down a nationally designated scenic byway. Snaking along the Turnagain Arm, we’ll look for Dall sheep, bald eagles, moose, and beluga whales (depending on the tide), stopping along the way to take a look at points of interest (weather permitting). We’ll make a special stop at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. Upon arrival in Seward, we’ll take a look at an active bald eagle’s nest to see if anyone’s home, have dinner on the waterfront overlooking Resurrection Bay, and tuck into our hotel for the night.

8/7-After complimentary breakfast at the hotel or on your own in town, we’ll board our catamaran from the hotel dock for a 6-hour cruise through Kenai Fjords. Enjoy narrative information from the national park ranger onboard, who will relay the area’s history, ecology, and geology, while we visit an active tidewater glacier and listen for “white thunder” as ice calves into the bay. On this journey, we’ll look for and photograph harbor seals hauled out on icebergs, breaching humpbacks, pods of orcas, bellowing sea lions, horned and tufted puffins, and rafts of sea otters. Upon our return, we dock at the hotel and head for dinner at the Resurrection Roadhouse for a fine dining experience surrounded by forests and fireweed overlooking the Resurrection River. After dinner, we’ll drive to Exit Glacier and walk to a viewpoint for photographs.

8/8: After breakfast, guests will enjoy mushing at the Ididaride kennels (owned by the Seavey family, multiple-time champions of the Iditarod). We’ll learn about the race, what it takes to be a musher, what mushers wear, and how the dogs train. Then, we’ll take a ride  led by a team of Alaskan huskies through the wooded trails and along the Resurrection River. The visit concludes with the chance to cuddle a few puppies before making we take a short hike out to Exit Glacier for a picnic lunch. Then, we’ll head back to Anchorage, where some visitors will continue on with Wild Departures on the Katmai Bear Tour.

After your return, you’ll email us your favorite image from the trip (or select from one of ours), and we’ll have it printed, framed, and shipped to you for viewing in your home as a reminder of your adventure.

Shutterbugs on the trip will have the opportunity to shadow and learn from Michelle Theall in the field, in real-time.

Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime trip led by the photographer and senior editor of Alaska magazine. No one knows Alaska better.