Capturing the Moment

  A bird flies overhead as we cruise past a hanging glacier, hidden high in the mountains until the view is revealed. Our first stop of this expedition trip was a visit to the glaciers in Kenai Fjords National Park. Not far out of the Alaskan town of Seward, our ship entered flooded valleys with cliffs and mountains rising thousands of feet on either side. At the end of each valley was a blue wall of ice, hundreds of feet high, disappearing off into the clouds beyond. Pieces of ice had fallen off the face of these glaciers and now bobbed around in the fjord. It was the perfect place to get out and explore more intimately by kayak and small boat. So that is exactly what we did. Our first stop was Holgate Glacier. It has several other hanging glaciers around it, that only reveal themselves from the proper angle. The birders onboard were thrilled with flocks of rhinocerus auklets, while everyone else enjoyed the playful seals and the stunning scenery. Waterfalls cascaded off the thous...

  My coworker, Christian, took this photo from one of our small boats. I am in the middle in the orange, setting up a paddle high-five in front of Holgate Glacier. I led a wonderful, five mile kayak trip today in the beautiful Kenai Fjords National Park near Seward, Alaska. My group of ten and I paddle through a fjord, past thousand foot waterfalls, up to the face of Holgate Glacier. This glacier had some of the bluest ice that I've seen. It was very low tide, and the glacier was resting on a sandy/rocky bottom, so we were able to safely get very close. On our paddle we came across a family of river otters as well as a mom and baby sea otter. There were a few water birds, with the horned puffin being the big star. But the glacier was by far the most memorable sight of the morning. I don't think the guests will forget looking up from the kayaks at a two hundred foot tall wall of ice, disappearing off into the horizon in front of them. There is something so special about explorin...