Coastal Glacier Viewpoint

The Coastal Glacier Viewpoint is accessible only via the tour boat and water taxi services operating out of Seward, placing visitors in one of Alaska's most dramatic fjord landscapes. The park's coastline holds numerous active tidewater glaciers — McCarty, Aialik, and Northwestern among them — that calve directly into the sea, sending house-sized icebergs crashing into the dark fjord waters. The short approach route from boat landing areas climbs rocky moraines deposited by glacial retreat over the past century, reaching viewpoints above the waterline where the full scale of the tidewater glacier face becomes apparent. The characteristic deep blue color of glacial ice results from the compression of millennia of snowfall into dense, air-bubble-free ice that absorbs longer wavelengths and reflects blue light. Steller sea lions haul out on rocky outcrops near the glacier, harbor seals rest on floating ice, and hundreds of kittiwakes, murres, and puffins nest on the fjord cliffs. Orca pods patrol the fjord channels in summer. This remote coastal section of the park sees almost no visitors outside of organized boat tours, preserving an atmosphere of genuine wilderness where glaciers calve unobserved into the sea.