Funny thing about Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park. Although the site’s mountains, fjords, rugged coastlines, and marquee glaciers attract more than 700,000 annual visitors, the vast majority of them never set foot on land.
More than 95% of parkgoers come aboard cruise ships that aren’t allowed to dock in the nature reserve. Instead, National Park Service rangers tender out to ships to stamp National Parks Passports, set up information desks, and supply hands-on activities as the ship cruises deeper into some of the wildest, most pristine waters on the planet.
But despite the park’s watery name, all but 600,000 acres of its 3.3-million-acre expanse isn’t ocean but wild, untouched land that few have experienced, save for the ancestors of the Huna Tlingit people who remain a powerful presence in the area today.
There is, however, one place where independent travelers can go ashore in Glacier Bay National Park for a new perspective on the dramatic land- and seascapes. And it’s surprisingly easy to get there.
How to Go Ashore at Glacier Bay National Park
You’ll need to start not from a cruise ship but from the 600-person town of Gustavus, located right outside the southeastern boundary of the park. Gustavus has a booming roster of visitor amenities and, even more important, a small airport with year-round service from Alaska Seaplanes and summer-only jet service from Juneau via Alaska Airlines.
The town also has a dock for the Alaska state ferries, which pass through every 3 or 4 days during the summer. It’s about a 6-hour trip to or from Juneau.
Note that although Gustavus is on the mainland, there are no roads to drive here. If you bring your RV on the ferry, however, there is a small RV/camper park where you can stay.
Your other lodging options are a handful of rental cabins and B&Bs as well as a scattering of all-inclusive lodges and inns. You’re on your own for meals and such at rental cabins; at other properties, staff members will cook for you, help you book activities in the national park, and provide transportation.
Heading for Bartlett Cove
To access the one and only place in Glacier Bay National Park you can visit on land, take that transportation 10 miles away from Gustavus to Bartlett Cove at the literal end of the road.
This is the park’s sole developed area with visitor services. There’s a National Park Service lodge (open from late May through August), hiking trails, a walk-in campground with composting toilets and bear-proof food caches, and a small dock jutting from the rocky, wave-washed shoreline.
The lodge doubles as the visitor center and there’s a restaurant on site too. Additionally, this is where you’d check in for the park service’s day tours aboard the 79-foot high-speed catamaran Baranof Wind. You’ll spot sea kayaks stashed nearby for the two guided kayaking services that operate within the park. Both offer day tours as well as multiday trips.
Of course, it’s what you’ll find outside the lodge that makes this little sliver of land in the park so special. For a rewarding ramble, follow the Tlingit Trail as it stretches more or less eastward near the shore from the Bartlett Cove dock and past a succession of natural and cultural treasures.
What You’ll See on Hiking Trails at Glacier Bay
The first noteworthy artifact you’ll encounter on the Tlingit Trail is the Yáxwch’i Yaakw or Sea Otter Canoe. Set under a shelter, this 22-foot seafaring canoe was built using traditional dugout methods. It’s so weathered you might assume the canoe has always been here. But in truth, this testament to the enduring legacy of Huna Tlingit culture was carved in 1987, a few years before the 1995 Memorandum of Understanding that formalized a growing spirit of collaboration between the National Park Service and the Huna Tlingit people.
Continuing along the trail, you’ll come to another pavilion-style shelter, this one housing a framework of bones that once gave shape to a 45-foot, 70,000-pound humpback whale. Named Snow after her distinctive white tail flukes, the whale was a regular visitor in Glacier Bay until being struck and killed by a cruise ship in 2001. Scientists estimated that she was around 45 years old.
Now Snow’s reassembled skeleton appears to swim through the air, poised with the graceful, finger-like bones of her fins in perpetual mid-stroke. The display is an impressive, land-bound representation of the creatures that have been so important to the region and its inhabitants for generations.
Last on the trail is Xunaa Shuká Hít, or the Huna Ancestors’ House, a tribal house opened in 2016 and used for traditional purposes as well as for visitors to learn about local Tlingit culture. When you stop in, make sure to watch the short film that documents the making of the tribal house and explains the meaning of the healing totem that stands just a short distance outside the door.
Once you’ve completed the Tlingit Trail, you haven’t exhausted Glacier Bay’s land-based attractions.
For a taste of the park’s sweeping wilderness that most visitors will never see, hike the Forest Loop—about a mile of easy walking that starts along an accessible boardwalk just southwest of the lodge. The boardwalk will take you as far as a pond and then transition to a footpath, passing close by the campground before looping back to town along the beach.
Along the way, you could see everything from moose browsing in ponds to rangers shooing away curious bears, all to a soundtrack of eagles making their characteristic squeak-eek-eek-eek chatter from the treetops above.
To delve even further, you can secure a backcountry camping permit and use the day-tour boat as a water taxi to reach true untouched wilderness deep in the park. Just make sure you’re well-equipped and have the skills to stay safe.
