Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve

Glacier Bay is one of the youngest landscapes you can visit. Only a couple of centuries ago the whole bay was buried under a wall of ice, and since then that ice has pulled back more than sixty miles, one of the fastest glacial retreats ever recorded. What it left behind is a long fjord, which is a deep sea inlet carved by a glacier, reaching far in among the mountains. Ride a boat up the bay and you pass through the whole story of how life returns after the ice. Near the mouth stand tall spruce and hemlock forests. Farther up, the plants get younger and smaller, until at the head of the bay you reach bare gray rock the ice uncovered only recently.

At the far reaches, tidewater glaciers still meet the sea. Their blue and white faces crack and groan, and now and then a slab breaks free and crashes into the water in a burst of spray, a moment called calving. Boats hold back at a safe distance and let visitors watch and listen, a reminder that the same forces that carved this bay are still hard at work. The ice looks blue up close because it is packed so tight and so old that it soaks up the other colors of light and gives back only blue.

The bay does not sit alone. It is part of an enormous protected wilderness, one of the largest on the planet, stitched together with neighboring parks in Alaska and Canada and recognized as a World Heritage site. Most of it is deep, roadless backcountry of forest, mountain, and ice. Human life clusters at the mouth, near Bartlett Cove and the town of Gustavus, where the lodge, the visitor center, and the boat docks are. Step onto the shore trails there and you are already in the rainforest, walking under dripping moss with the water and the mountains close at hand.

• By water or air only. There is no road into Glacier Bay. Every visitor arrives either by boat or by small plane, and the gateway for both is the town of Gustavus, just outside the park near Bartlett Cove.
• By cruise ship. Many people see the park from the deck of a large cruise ship that sails up the bay for a day as part of an Inside Passage voyage. A park ranger comes aboard to narrate. You never step ashore, but you get right up near the glaciers and the wildlife.
• By day boat or tour out of Bartlett Cove. If you come to Gustavus and stay, you can join a day boat that runs up the bay to the tidewater glaciers, or explore closer in by kayak and on the forest trails.
• To reach Gustavus, most travelers fly in from Juneau, Alaska's capital, which is a short hop away by small plane, or take the state ferry across the water. From Juneau there is no way to simply drive over, because the whole region is cut off from the outside road system, so the trip is by plane or boat.

• Take a day boat tour up the bay, the classic way to reach the tidewater glaciers from Bartlett Cove. You spend the day cruising past forested shores, ice, and wildlife, with a ranger aboard to point things out.
• Watch for whales and marine life. Summer brings humpback whales that lunge and breach as they feed, orcas cutting through the channels, harbor seals resting on floating ice, and sea otters drifting in the kelp.
• Visit the Huna Tribal House at Bartlett Cove, a traditional Tlingit clan house raised in the homeland of the Huna Tlingit, with carved and painted panels that tell the story of the people and their return to the bay.
• Walk the Bartlett Cove trails, easy forest and shore paths that wind through mossy rainforest and past a whale skeleton on display, a gentle way to feel the park on foot near the lodge.
• Paddle a kayak along the quiet lower bay, where you glide close to the shoreline, the seabirds, and the seals at water level.
• Look for bears, mountain goats, and eagles on the steep green shores as the boat moves up the bay, and for puffins and other seabirds near the rocky islands.

Long before it was a park, this was and still is the homeland of the Huna Tlingit people, who lived along the bay and drew their food, tools, and stories from its waters and shores. Then the climate cooled and the ice advanced. A great glacier pushed down the bay and forced the Huna Tlingit to abandon their villages and move to new homes across the water, near what is now the town of Hoonah. The loss of that homeland is remembered in Tlingit oral history as a central and painful part of who the Huna people are. The bay was never forgotten. It remained theirs in memory, in ceremony, and in the harvests they returned for.

When outsiders first recorded the bay in the late 1700s, ice still choked its entrance. In the century that followed, the glaciers pulled back at a stunning rate, opening the long fjord seen today. The naturalist John Muir traveled here in 1879 and wrote about the ice with wonder, which helped draw the wider world's attention. Scientists came to study a place where they could watch, almost in real time, how a landscape rebuilds itself after glaciers retreat.

The area was set aside as Glacier Bay National Monument in 1925 to protect that living record of the ice, and in 1980 it was enlarged and made a national park and preserve. Protecting the land, though, did not erase the Huna Tlingit connection to it. Over the years the National Park Service and the Huna people worked to renew that relationship, honoring the bay as homeland rather than empty wilderness.

That renewed relationship took shape most visibly in 2016, when the Huna Tribal House, known as Xunaa Shuká Hít, was dedicated at Bartlett Cove. Carved and raised by Tlingit hands in the traditional way, it stands as a place for the Huna people to gather in their homeland once more, and as a welcome and a teacher for every visitor who comes to the bay.

• The ice that filled the whole bay in the 1700s has pulled back more than sixty miles since then, one of the fastest glacial retreats ever measured anywhere.
• There is no road into the park at all. Glacier Bay is one of the few US national parks you cannot drive to, reached only by boat or small plane.
• Glacier ice often looks deep blue because it is packed so dense and old that it absorbs the reds and yellows of sunlight and reflects back only blue.
• The park sits inside one of the largest protected wilderness areas on Earth, a World Heritage site shared with neighboring parks in Alaska and Canada.
• Humpback whales travel thousands of miles from tropical waters near Hawaii and Mexico to feed in the cold, rich waters of Glacier Bay each summer.
• Because the land here was crushed flat under heavy ice for so long, it is now slowly rising, or rebounding, as the weight lifts, lifting the shoreline a little higher with each passing year.
• The Huna Tribal House at Bartlett Cove, dedicated in 2016, was the first permanent Tlingit clan house built in the bay in more than two hundred years.
• Riding a single boat from the mouth of the bay to the glaciers, you pass forests, shrublands, and bare rock in order, seeing centuries of recovery from the ice laid out along the shore.

• There is no entrance station and no vehicle to bring, since you arrive by boat or plane. Cruise, day boat, and tour costs are set by the operators, so check current details before you book.
• Summer is the season. The lodge, the day boats, the tribal house programs, and the visitor center at Bartlett Cove are open in the warmer months, and access is very limited the rest of the year.
• Plan your travel ahead. You fly or ferry to Gustavus, most often by way of Juneau, and boat trips up the bay fill up in summer, so arrange transport and tours before you come.
• Dress for a cool, wet coast. This is temperate rainforest, so the weather is often chilly, gray, and rainy even in summer. Bring warm layers and good waterproof gear, and expect changeable skies.
• Services are limited and clustered near Bartlett Cove and Gustavus. Beyond that small hub, the park is deep wilderness with no facilities, so come prepared and self-sufficient.

By water or air only, because there is no road into the park. Many people see it from a cruise ship that sails up the bay for a day as part of an Inside Passage voyage, with a park ranger aboard to narrate. Others fly or take the ferry to the small town of Gustavus, stay near Bartlett Cove, and join a day boat or tour up the bay. Either way you plan the trip around a boat, so book ahead for the summer season.

No. Glacier Bay is one of the few US national parks with no road access at all. The gateway town of Gustavus itself is cut off from the outside road system, so you cannot drive over from Juneau or anywhere else. You reach Gustavus by small plane or by state ferry, usually by way of Juneau, and then you explore the park by boat.

It is a bay full of tidewater glaciers, the kind that flow right down to the sea and calve off slabs of ice into the water. It is also one of the youngest landscapes on Earth. The ice that filled the whole bay in the 1700s has since pulled back more than sixty miles, one of the fastest glacial retreats ever recorded, so a single boat trip carries you from old forest to bare, freshly uncovered rock at the ice.

The cold, rich waters draw a lot of life. Summer brings humpback whales that lunge and breach as they feed, orcas cutting through the channels, harbor seals resting on floating ice near the glaciers, and sea otters drifting in the kelp. On the steep green shores you may spot brown and black bears, mountain goats on the cliffs, bald eagles, and seabirds such as puffins near the rocky islands.

Glacier Bay is the ancestral homeland of the Huna Tlingit people, who lived along its shores long before it was a park. Centuries ago an advancing glacier forced them to leave their villages and move across the water, a loss remembered in their oral history. The bay remained theirs in memory and in ceremony, and in 2016 the Huna Tribal House was dedicated at Bartlett Cove, the first permanent Tlingit clan house in the bay in more than two hundred years. Visitors are welcome to see it and learn the story.

Summer is the season. The warmer months are when the lodge, the day boats, the tour operators, the tribal house programs, and the Bartlett Cove visitor center are open, when wildlife is most active, and when the cruise season is in full swing. Access is very limited the rest of the year, so plan for summer and book ahead.

Cool, wet, and changeable. This is a coastal temperate rainforest, so even in summer the days are often chilly, gray, and rainy, with skies that shift quickly. Bring warm layers and good waterproof gear, and do not count on sunshine. The upside of all that moisture is the deep green rainforest that cloaks the lower bay.

A cruise ship day gives you several hours cruising up the bay to the glaciers and back, which is enough to take in the ice and the wildlife from the deck. If you fly into Gustavus and stay, plan on at least a full day for a day boat up the bay, plus more time for the Bartlett Cove trails, the tribal house, and some kayaking. Two or three days lets you enjoy it without rushing.

There is a lodge at Bartlett Cove near the park headquarters, open in the summer season, along with a campground in the forest by the shore. Just outside the park, the town of Gustavus has inns and small lodgings. Most people base themselves at Bartlett Cove or in Gustavus and head out onto the bay from there. Book early, because rooms are limited and fill up in summer.

Pets are quite limited here. They are generally allowed only in a few developed spots near Bartlett Cove, on a leash, and are not permitted on most trails, on tour boats, or in the backcountry. Because so much of the park is reached by boat and shared with abundant wildlife, it is best to leave pets at home. Check the park website for the current pet rules before you travel.