You Can’t Drive Through Kenai Fjords, But You Can Experience The National Park By Foot, Boat, And Plane

By land, by sea, and by foot, the vastness of Kenai Fjords National Park is challenging to comprehend, especially since you can’t drive through Kenai Fjords. With the Harding Icefield sprawling over 700 square miles and the closest parking vehicle access points being Exit Glacier and the city of Seward, AK getting a hands-on experience with the fjords is difficult. Many find themselves asking the question, “What’s so special about Kenai Fjords National Park and how can I access it?” The answer is in the question.

What makes Kenai Fjords National Park so special is the limited access and how you access the park. While this park is massive, the best way to engage with this landscape is from every angle. That means get your boots dirty, fly high in the sky staring down at the glacier terrain, and observe a glacier calving directly into fjord’s water from the safety of a vessel.

Experience Kenai Fjords National Park By Boat

The best way to gain access to the fjords is from inside of them. If you have the required sea kayaking skills, I suggest you rent a sea kayak with a friend and head out for a multi-day sea-kayaking expedition to explore the fjords and camp on the beaches. If that is a little bit too adventurous for you, there are wildlife tour companies, like Major Marine Tours, who showcase the birds and aquatic life thriving around the fjords, educate you on how the fjords are formed hundreds of thousands of years, and get you as close to the calving glaciers as safely possible.

Experience Kenai Fjords National Park By Hiking

Hiking in Kenai Fjords National Park is a loaded scenario because of the skill needed to access the fjords. Hiking into the fjords is difficult and takes glacial navigational skills. That means you’ll need a partner, crampons, a rescue system in the event of a crevasse fall, and at least a week. My guess is that won’t work for most of you reading this, but you still have options. If you want to see a glacier located in Kenai Fjords National Park, you can hike Exit Glacier. There are two hikes here; a short hike that gains a modest elevation to a viewing area of the glacier and a long hike that many people use to sleep overnight with stellar views of the Harding Icefield.

Experience Kenai Fjords National Park By Plane

The most stunning way to experience Kenai Fjords National Park is from the air during a flight tour. It is here you will see the vastness of the Harding Icefield and comprehend the grand size of Kenai Fjords National Park. Soaring through the sky, in a small plane, you gain an aerial perspective of the geology at work. From your window, you’ll see the carving glaciers and fjords outlets leading to the Pacific Ocean. The stark difference between the crevassed white glacier and smooth dark granite makes me hyperaware of the geological timeline this frozen river encapsulates.