Kenai Fjords

The southern coast of Alaska makes it ridiculously easy to take good pictures.  Seward is a wonderful postcard of a town.  I highly recommend eating there and visiting the Alaska SeaLife Center.  This is the view from our restaurant – the flowers are in a box outside the window.

While on the coast, we took a couple amazing hikes.  The first was the famous hike to see one of the few accessible glaciers in the area.  Never ask an Alaskan if a hike is easy.  “I’m an old woman, and I have no problem!”  It’s not easy.

But it’s worth it.  You can see the glacier from the parking lot, but the trail is a series of switchbacks with a constant incline.

There are some worthy sights along the way (if you’re not preoccupied blaming your husband for dragging you up the mountain).

We passed several trail runners (awesome crazies) carrying absolutely nothing but their spandex.

I almost got blown off the mountain photographing these cutie hoary marmots.

And then you get to the top.

And then you remember that going down is always much harder than you think it’s going to be.  Fortunately, our next stop was the boat trip departing from Seward.  Make sure to make reservations ahead of time.

We started seeing sea otters right away.

Several colonies of Stellar sea lions.

Mountain goats way up on the cliff side…

My first whale sighting (only got a short video), and a glacier falling into the ocean.  The boats take turns getting close to the glacier, and it was nice to get some alone time with this force of nature.

The boat was a good size, and I really appreciated the option to go inside and sit down.  We spent most of the time on deck, but the wind gets to you after a while.  We also heard that the boat’s dinner was not worth the expense, so we packed snacks and sub sandwiches.  Neither of us felt left out at dinnertime.

Next stop – Ferry ride to Kachemak Bay State Park