Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve

The marine wilderness of Glacier Bay National Park sits at the northern end of the Alaska Panhandle, stretching from Gustavus just west of Juneau north through the Gulf of Alaska, on to the Alsek River, one of the state's 26 national wild and scenic rivers. The park is part of a 37,500 square mile block of protected land, a World Heritage Site, that also includes Wrangell-St. Elias National Park (the nation's largest) and Canada's Tatsenshini-Alsek Park and Kluane National Park and includes tidewater glaciers, snow-capped mountain ranges, ocean coastlines, deep fjords, and freshwater rivers and lakes.

Located at the middle of the Park, a sixty mile wide inlet marks the entrance to Glacier Bay itself, a collection of inlets and fjords and home to extraordinary collection of 16 active tidewater glaciers, many of which calve into the bay itself with tremendous force. These glaciers are believed to be some of the fastest moving glaciers in the world retreating at 1.5 inches a year, and the ice blocks, you will see drop into the bay, may have taken 200 years to reach that point. Getting within ¼ of a mile of these glaciers, only two ships are permitted to enter the bay each day during the summer months.

As well as its abundance of glaciers, the park is a wildlife lover's dream. In the summer months humpback and killer whales patrol the waters as they come here to feed whilst on shore look out for bears, both brown and black.

Along with Denali Park, Glacier Bay National Park is most often quoted the reason for coming to Alaska.