Sea stars

Heading into Halibut Cove

Halibut Cove coffee shop

View of Halibut cove community

Back into the water crossing the Cove inlet

Arrived the beach for Saddle Trail, and we see sunshine!

View from the saddle trail

Arrived at Grewingk glacier lake

Nice blue hues from the floating ice bergs with Grewingk glacier in the background

August 21, Thursday, Day 9
Homer and Seldovia

Our last full day in Homer and I have booked us on another all-day excursion. This time is a wildlife boat cruise plus Seldovia through Rainbow Tours. The boat first heads towards Gull Island, a small uninhabited island filled with seabirds. Then we continued on to Seldovia, a little town SW of Homer, reachable only by boat and seaplane. The boat trip is a bit long; took 1.5 hrs to reach Seldovia. We departed at 10:30am and arrived at 1pm. Before we got off, the crew passed out a map and made suggestions of what to see and do.

We packed our lunch and ate at a picnic table near the dock. We also toured the local museum and learned a bit of the town's history. Like many coastal towns in Alaska, the 1964 Good Friday earthquake destroyed a good part of town (the land sunk several feet). The boat crew told us the nearby river might have salmon run, so we walked there but we didn't see any salmon. Instead there were many jellyfish. The town also has a huge assortment of chainsaw wood-carved sculptures, which you can say is a bit of a scavenger hunt. We also headed to the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox church, one of the oldest building in town. In kenai peninsula there are a lot of Russian Orthodox communities. Finally we went to the "Inside Beach" in Seldovia where we were told has sea glass. We searched for them and only found tiny pieces. In total we had 2.5 hours in Seldovia — minus the 1/2 hr we spent at lunch plus the museum, there isn't enough time for us to go on any of the longer hikes, so instead we just wandered around town.

Overall we thought Seldovia was okay, bit of a sleepy town and not really worth spending a whole day just to come see it. The boat trip without detour takes a full hour. On the wildlife part, we saw lots of seabirds, lots of sea otters, and 2 types of whales. But the whales are pretty far out so we only got a quick glimpse. In retrospect, I think we should have taken 1 day from Homer and added an extra day to Seward, our next destination. Our entire day on the boat and Seldovia was overcast and a bit chilly. But by the time we returned to Homer at 5pm, Homer was bathed in sunlight with blue skies. i don't know if the sun finally came out late in the day or has it been sunny all day in Homer itself. I just felt like we wasted a whole day on a not-too-exciting destination. The tour was $101pp, with taxes and fees came out to $345.

We had ice cream in Seldovia before getting back on the boat ($12) and back in Homer we went to Safeway and bought groceries ($32) to cook dinner in the airbnb.

Beautiful sunset view from our airbnb that evening. In the middle of the night I woke up , and given tonight was the first clear skies we've had on this trip, I went outside to look a the night skies, and was able to see milky way without much difficulty.

~ End of Day 9 ~

One of the islands by Gull Island. Every nook in the rock is a bird, as well as on top of the rock

Seldovia welcome sign

Chainsaw wood carved sculpture

Chainsaw wood carved sculpture

Inside beach at Seldovia

Found some tiny bits of sea glass

Beautiful afternoon back in Homer - harbor on the Spit

Sunset view from our Airbnb; you can see the Grewingk glacier (where we hiked to yesterday) to the left of the trees

Wonderful puotos, especially the sea stars. This proves you and your family are in terrific physical shape. The sea kayaking and hiking adventure sounded wonderful.

yk - As always, fantastic pictures! That train looks really big and sturdy. My mouth is watering over those crab legs.

The first time I visited Fairbanks, Alaska to see my cousin, I was surprised how thin the trees were. My cousin said it's because the ground never un-freezes so the trees can't put in big roots and can't grow big. So you always see a lot of sky The great thing about traveling is that it opens your mind, do different realities. I always imagined Alaska filled with giant trees! Maybe further south. After spending 4 weeks in Washington's Olympic Peninsula, surrounded by trees it's hard to imagine someone feeling claustrophobic "because of all the trees" but hey differnet strokes!

Tdiddy12 When we took the RainForest tour in Quinault, where we visited the largest Sitka tree, our guide explained that even though there is a town called Sitka in Alaska, the sitka trees further north (in Alaska) are much shorter, due to the cold weather as well as the permafrost. It is really in Olympic peninsula that has the ideal weather & rainfall for the trees to grow so big. We learned a lot about permafrost when we were in Alaska; some places the permafrost is very close to the top soil, some places are deeper. In the areas where permafrost is close to the surface, only small vegetations can grow before their roots hit the permafrost.

August 22, Friday, Day 10
Heading to Seward, our last stop 😢

After a week and a half of mostly cloudy skies, we woke up to a sunny day with clear blue skies. I was sad to leave Homer; although the town is fairly small, it is such a stunningly beautiful location. Our AirBnb has an amazing view. If I get to wake up to this view every morning, I might not want to leave, EVER.

While Homer and Seward are only 80 miles apart as the crow flies, by road it is close to 180 miles and takes 3.5 hours. The two cities are separated by the Harding Ice Field, hence the need to go around it by road. You have to travel north on Sterling Hwy all the way back to Tern Lake before heading southward on the Seward Hwy down to Seward. We had traveled a few days ago on the segment between Homer and Tern Lake, though the weather is clearer today. As we leave Homer our car climb up the hill, I can see in the rear view mirror the beautiful Kachemat Bay and its mountains, which is truly breathtaking. I feel a tinge of sadness thinking that I may never return and see this view again.

While heading north on Sterling Hwy, we could catch glimpses of the mountains and volcanos across Cook Inlet, but we didn't make any stops to pull over. As we approach Cooper River area, we saw many people fishing in the river — this is peak salmon season. This section of Chugach National Forest is very pretty, but what I didn't expect is that the Tern Lake and Seward Hwy beyond is even prettier.

We finally reached the outskirts of Seward around 12:30pm, and I somehow found a place near Exit Glacier turnoff that serves French-style crepes, Le Barn Appetit! The place offers lodgings too. After many many days of homemade turkey & cheese sandwich, a lunch of crepes is a nice welcome. We ended up ordering 5 crepes, 3 savory and 2 sweet, for $90.

Exit Glacier Area, the only part of Kenai Fjords National Park that is accessible by road, lies just a few miles north of Seward at milepost 3 of Seward Hwy. After you turn off, it is another 8-mile drive to the Visitors center. As you enter the park, you will notice there are signs along the road with years. Each sign indicates where the terminus of the glacier ended at that year. The first sign was 1815, by the time you reach the visitors center parking lot, it is now 1917. This visit is definitely the most sobering experience for me on this trip.

We hung out in the visitors center for a bit, so my son can start on his junior ranger activity book, while we wait for a 2:30pm ranger-led walk to start. The walk lasts 90 minutes and ends at the Exit Glacier overlook. We had a fabulous ranger, so knowledgable about everything. As we continue on the path, we leap forward in time with those signs, including the famous 1961 sign where Barack Obama had a photo taken there during his visit (he was born in 1961 and hence posed there). We then reached a pavilion built in 1987. (see 3rd photo in the linked article) I thought it was just a nice pavilion for visitors to stop and rest while hiking on the glacier overlook trail, until the ranger told us that the glacier ended right here at the pavilion then (40 years ago). He even showed us photos taken then - you can see in the photo the massive glacier right behind the pavilion. Today? We are in a middle of a forest — surrounded by trees that are 30+ years old. You can't even see where the glacier is in relation to the pavilion.

Finally the path took us out of the new forest and we can finally see the glacier. The trail has been extended twice, first time in 2005 to the 2005 terminus, and again in 2010 to the 2010 terminus. It is shocking to see how much more the glacier has retreated in the past 15 years - not just it has gotten shorter, but also narrower, and you can see the deep ravine left behind and can imagine how much volume of ice that has disappeared. 2005 was the year we got married; and our son was born in 2012, not that far removed from 2010, so even in his short lifetime, the glacier has retreated a lot.

On that sobering note, we retraced our steps back to the visitors center and retrieved our car. The only other trail in the entire Kenai Fjord National Park is the 8.2-mile, 3000ft elev out-and-back harding Ice Field Trail. I think if we had another day in Seward, we might have attempted it. In any case, we drove to our Airbnb, rested a bit, then drove into the city of Seward for dinner.

For this evening, we picked Gold Rush Bistro, near the southern tip of Seward. I had garlic halibut on rice, husband had seafood alfredo (halibut and scallops), son had Cajun Chicken pasta. Dinner was $132. We got ice cream next door at Sweet Darlings ($20) AS it was a beautiful evening, after dinner we had a little walk down to the Seward sea wall, and also found the Iditarod Historic Trail statue before returning to our AirBnb for the night.

~ End of Day 10 ~

Morning view of Kachemak Bay from our Homer Airbnb; makes me want to stay here forever

Scenery en route to Seward

Obligatory National Park sign; exit glacier visible in the back

2005 extension; where the glacier ended then. You can see how far the glacier has retreated in 20 years

My garlic halibut dinner

Iditarod mile marker statue

Looking south from Seward into Resurrection Bay

August 23, Saturday, Day 11
Cruising Resurrection Bay

It is hard to believe today is our last full day in Alaska! We had to wake up early as I have booked us on the 8am departure for the 6-hr Kenai Fjords National Park Cruise with Major Marine ($225pp; total $750). We are told to arrive an hour early to check in...

[ Side note: there are several companies that operate fjord / glacier / wildlife cruises out of Seward, but Major Marine is the biggest player in town. They offer several cruises ranging from 4 hours to 6 hrs to 7.5 hrs to 8.5 hrs. The 4-hr one only goes around the Resurrection Bay without entering the Gulf of Alaska, so no issues of sea sickness. The 6-hr cruise is the most popular one, as it visits ONE tidewater glacier plus the Bay. 7.5-hr cruise visit TWO tidewater glaciers, whereas 8.5-hr cruise visit Northwestern Glacier. See route map here.]

I picked the 6-hr because I do want to see at least one tidewater glacier, and don't feel the need to see more than 1. 6 hrs is long enough to be on a boat anyway. Given this is their most popular cruise, they run it twice a day at 8am and at 11:30am during the summer. The 11:30am departure caters for the train passengers arriving on Alaska Railroad from Anchorage.

[Another side note: Seward is one of the 2 cruise ship ports in Southcentral Alaska, with the other port being Whittier. Yesterday we saw a cruise ship in town, but there wasn't one today. I don't know how crowded the town / cruises get when there is a cruise ship docked, you may want to consult the cruise ship schedule when you plan your visit to Seward.]

Anyway, we arrived at Major Marine check-in around 7am; there is a municipal parking lot across the street for $10/day. Once checked in, there is a waiting room inside the building, but given it was a beautiful day, we waited outside and enjoyed the view of the serene harbor. Boarding starts 30 minutes before departure, and just before you board, the staff tells you your assigned indoor table. For this cruise, Major Marine uses their largest vessel, the Kenai Fjords 360, which is great in terms of seasickness. Our cruise wasn't full — they were empty tables but those are in the center; all the window-view tables are taken I believe.

Although the water is calm inside Resurrection Bay, the staff came on the PA advising people to prepare for motion, as it's best to prevent than to treat. I had put on a scopolamine patch early in the morning. I told my son to take his dramamine and wear his seabands; though unbeknownst to me he didn't. He was stubborn and was confident that he wouldn't get seasick ...

Anyway, for the outbound trip, we spent most of our time on the bow. We saw 2 types of whales (fin whale and humpback) though they were not very close, lots of otters. Around 10:30'ish we entered Gulf of Alaska in order to get inside Aialik Bay for the glacier. The waves were 3-4' which the captain said is pretty normal. This is also the time they started passing out lunch (included in the ticket price), and we couldn't really sit down to eat until the boat was inside the Bay. Our captain chose Holgate glacier for today, and we had time to finish lunch before the boat got close enough to the glacier.

We were at Holgate Glacier for about 30 minutes but we didn't see any calving during that time. On the way back, the boat goes near the Chiswell Islands known to be hangouts for the Stellar Sea Lions. Not only we saw the sea lions, we also saw seals, and lots of puffins. How these 1000lb+ male sea lions climb up to the rocks I have no idea!

So... unsurprisingly, my son started feeling queasy on the way back, so I sat with him in the stern in the lowest level the whole time. It was too late for seabands or dramamine, but he was able to get some ginger candy from the ship staff. There were a handful of other passengers who were puking the whole way back.

While we were disappointed we didn't see any orcas, towards end of our cruise we ran into a pod of playful Dall's porpoises who swam and jumped in front of our ship for several minutes, which was super fun.

As it was only 2pm when we returned on land, we headed to Alaska SeaLife Center for a visit ($104). I didn't have high expectations, thinking that it's just a run-of-the-mill aquarium. But in fact I found it very interesting, very possibly because the sea life in Gulf of Alaska is vastly different than where we normally reside! They have sea lions, seals, otters, also sea birds with puffins, king crab, and a huge aquarium of sea stars in particular, the amazing sunflower sea stars. The sunflower sea stars were severely affected by the seastar wasting disease over a decade ago, during which 90% of them died.

We spent about 90 minutes at the SeaLife Center. Even though it was not quite 5pm then, we decided to call it a day, given how early we got up that morning. We swung by the Safeway in Seward for ingredients for an easy home cooked dinner and then back to the Airbnb. Our Airbnb has a huge projector screen, and also an air popper, so we popped some popcorn, watched a movie, before making dinner. One might feel it's a waste of our last evening in Alaska (esp given it was a beautiful day), but at this point on our trip we were tired and just wanted an evening to stay in and relax.

~ End of Day 11 ~

Serene Seward harbor before boarding our cruise

Inside Resurrection Bay - bear glacier in the distance

Holgate glacier

One of the side glaciers by Holgate - it used to be a tidewater glacier (meaning it terminus reaches the sea) - but no longer

Stellar sea lions on Chiswell islands

Stellar sea lion inside Alaska SeaLife center

Sunflower sea stars -- they come in different colors

Two types of puffins seen in this area

King crab

August 24, Sunday, Day 12
It's our last day in Alaska - our return flight is a red-eye departing Anchorage at 9:50pm (or so we thought). Our plan was to spend an hour or 2 in Seward in the morning before returning to Anchorage after lunch and spend time with my roommate. If you recall, we saw her very briefly the night of our arrival due to our delayed flight, and she left for work the next morning before we got up.

After checking out of our Airbnb, we drove back into Seward (our Airbnb is 3 miles outside of town). Our son finally finished his junior ranger activity book so we went to the Kenai Fjords National Park Visitors Center in Seward to get his badge. We also checked out the exhibit and watched the park film. Knowing that we would be sitting a lot for the next many hours, we found a short hike nearby called Two Lakes Trail. Even though it is literally just next to the town, it feels quite isolated and removed from civilization.

Towards end of our short hike, I got a text msg from American Airlines alerting me to a delay. Here we go again!!! Our first leg (ANC-ORD) is delayed 2.5 hrs, pushing our departure time to 12:30am. The issue is, our layover time in ORD is 2 hours... which means we will miss our (9am) connection to Boston by just about 15 minutes. Not to worry, I thought, given that Chicago is a major AA hub, there are plenty of flights later that day flying to Boston. It took a while before AA was able to rebook us on our second flight, except that it isn't until 3pm which means we will have a 6-hr layover in Chicago. UGH!!! Worse still, if you recall at the start of my TR, because we wanted to upgrade the red-eye, my husband's confirmation was split off from mine & my son's, and they rebooked my husband on a completely different airline/itinerary (Alaska Airline via Portland OR).

So we got into our car and I drove us back to downtown Seward where I get decent cell phone signal, and called AA to fix this "mess." After a half-hour phone call, they were able to move my husband onto the same flights as me & our son, but they were not able to move up our connecting flight, because both earlier flights (11a & 1p) were fully booked.

By then it was lunch time so we stayed in Seward and ate at Firebrand BBQ, which is like a roadside place with open seating ($65). Then we set off the final leg of driving, back up Seward Hwy pass Tern Lake, then continued on along Turnagain Arm where we had passed through almost a week earlier. We made a quick stop at Beluga Point Lookout, where we didn't see any belugas, before arriving at my friend's house back in Anchorage.

We spent the afternoon chatting and catching up at her home, before we went out for dinner. Although our flight is now departing at 12:30am, our car is still due by 9pm so we couldn't really stay out too late. We had a very nice meal at South Restaurant. After we said our goodbyes, we topped off the gas tank of the rental car and returned to the airport.

Since my son and I had upgraded to First, we checked in at the First class line and checked in all our luggage (2 free bags per person). I casually asked the agent if there are still FC seats available (we had checked again a few days earlier and it was still asking for 80k miles). She said yes, there are 2 open seats and available for upgrade for $200. We jumped at the offer (I had paid $280 pp for our upgrades) so husband didn't have to sit by himself in the back.

We had several hours to kill so we did some last-minute souvenir shopping, walked up and down all the terminals, and finally got on our flight. Our flight took off on-time, and as we were near ORD, I realized we had caught up enough time that there is a chance we might catch our original connection after all, if someone could let that flight know we are coming and wait for us. I spoke with our purser but he insisted that we would not make it and there's nothing he could do. I checked the other 2 flights (one at 11am and one at 1pm) on the app, and I could see both had long wait-list, where as the 9am flight still has 5 open seats.

Just before touchdown, I checked again and saw the 9am flight is now delayed for 20 minutes! Yes, we have a chance, esp we are arriving at H18 and the 9am flight departs at H10! After we touched down (it was a few minutes before 9am), we came to a stop. Captain came on to say our gate (H18) is occupied and the plane at the gate has a slight delay. ARRGH!!! Finally we parked at the gate, and given we were sitting in First Class, we were able to deplane right away. I told the boys to follow me and I started running towards H10, only to arrive and find the words, "BOARDING CLOSED" on the display screen. There was an agent at the gate so I asked her if there's any way we could still get on this flight, otherwise we will have a 6-hr layover. She didn't respond but made a few calls and tapped tapped tapped on her keyboard. A few tense minutes later she said, "let me see what I can do." What seemed like an eternity, (maybe 10 minutes later) she printed out 3 new boarding passes for us and unlocked the door for us to board. YESSSSSS!!! Even though they were all single, middle seats, we didn't care as we just wanted to get home as soon as. She was able to put my son and I in the same row, both middle seats across the aisle. It's really not a big deal given he's almost 13 and the flight is only 2 hours. So we finally made it back to Boston on our "original" flight, getting in just before 1pm.

At Logan we had to go to the AA Baggage Claim office to file a claim, since our checked luggage didn't get on our flight. This ended up being another saga which I won't document here, but eventually we received 2 of the suitcases that evening at 10pm, and our 3rd suitcase the next day at 6pm.

Post-script : I checked the flight status of the 3pm flight that we were rebooked on. That flight was (surprise surprise) delayed for 2hours. If we had stuck with it, we wouldn't arrive back in Boston until after 8pm that evening. Instead, we had been home for 6 hours, napped, showered, gone grocery shopping, ate dinner etc etc. So in the end, we were super lucky in various ways: 1) all 3 of us were in first class, 2) the 2 gates were close by , 3) we only had backpacks and not big luggage so we could run to the gate quickly. If none of this aligned, we would have been stuck in Chicago for another 8 hours.

~ End of Day 12/13 ~

Two lakes trail in Seward'

Two lakes trail in Seward

Tern lake along Seward highway seen from the car

Beluga point lookout looking at Turnagain Arm

What an adventure including the ride home. It looks like Alaska has gotten a lot more expensive since our last visit in 2004. I think we went onmthe six hour Major Marine trip. DH had had a bad deep sea fishing trip in NH getting very sick so he was not enthusiastic about a boat ride. We still have the sea bands and he took dramamine. But we lucked out on a day when the ocean was like a lake. There are only a couple of days like that all summer so our captain was able to take the boat thru a very narrow passage into a lagoon that I think was a very old volcano crater. We did see lots of orcas and got near enough to a humpback to smell whale breath. There are only glacier disn't calves for us but the ship's engines were shut off so we could hear the ice hitting the boat.

on our first trip we were in Skagway same time as a cruise boat. The streets were mobbed and the merchants did extra things like street vending because stores and restaurants were crowded. I worried about dinner that night but discovered everyone goes back to their ship at 5pm. We had no trouble finding dinner since at night the restaurants were pretty empty. Even Bar Har Maine has a rule of thumb to check cruise ship schedules. No funnti visit same time as thousands of cruise ship passengers.

thanks for another great YK trip report.

The last few posts were a great grand finale to your fabulous TR.

The lodge that we didn't get to when the captain turned the boat around was farther up Aialik Bay than where you went at Holgate Glacier.

Thanks for posting!

Great trip report! You always write the best reports - the level of detail makes one feel as though they are joining you on the trip. Also, love that you include costs. Thanks for writing and sharing your experience!

Wonderful report. It is so nice that you were able to make that last flight home. Keep on going, I enjoy doing a vicarious trip along with you, thanks

Enjoyed the TR. will be visiting in May 2026, and am very excited.

I’ve enjoyed your trip report. We were in Anchorage, Seward Alyeska three years ago and did similar adventures. This July/August we took the train from Fairbanks to Denali, Anchorage and Seward. Missed out on the float trip in the lake and down the river. Our only day of rain and we were on the verge of colds. Otherwise our weather was perfect. The places you visited brought back great memories and the photos reminded me of what we saw and didn’t see. We included King Salmon and Brooks Falls on our first trip and Kodiak Island on this year’s trip. And I have 60#s of salmon and halibut in the freezer to prove it. A magical land. And nice to get off the mainland for the added adventures. It’s tempting to return to the “Land of the Midnight Sun”.

jill_h, dfrostnh, Nelson, RoxAnn24, oldemalloy, mare0520, thank you all for reading and for your comments!

RoxAnn24, so you were back in Alaska this year?

jill_h, which part of Alaska will you be visiting?

When I find the time, I will post some post-trip thoughts and tally up the total costs (GULP!) of this trip.