My Alaska Railroad trip from Anchorage to Seward was already shaping up to be one ridiculously long day.
I had gotten up early enough to walk to the Anchorage train station for a 5:30 AM arrival, although the Alaska sun had beaten me outside. I boarded the train, settled into GoldStar Service, ate a breakfast that naturally included reindeer sausage, and spent the next several hours staring through those massive curved glass windows as the train worked its way south toward Seward.
But the train ride wasn’t actually the destination.
It was transportation to the next adventure.
Because apparently spending most of the day riding a train through Alaska wasn’t enough for me. I had decided to squeeze a six-hour boat excursion through Kenai Fjords National Park into the middle of it.
Because… ADVENTURE!!!
From the Rails to the Water
When the train arrived in Seward, there wasn’t much time for leisurely wandering around town. I had another mode of transportation waiting for me.
A boat.
The plan was wonderfully excessive: take the Alaska Railroad from Anchorage to Seward, spend roughly six hours cruising the waters around Kenai Fjords National Park, return to Seward, get back on the train, and ride all the way to Anchorage.
All in one day.
Looking back, this was an early example of my tendency to look at a perfectly reasonable vacation itinerary and ask:
“Okay, but what else can I fit in there?”
So, off to sea I went.
Welcome to Kenai Fjords
Leaving Seward behind, the scenery quickly made it obvious why I had booked the excursion.
Alaska is one of those places where photographs almost feel inadequate.
Almost.
That didn’t stop me from taking plenty of them.
From the water, everything seemed enormous. Mountains rose almost directly out of the sea. Snow still covered the higher elevations. Waterfalls appeared along the rocky shoreline. Small islands dotted the landscape as the boat pushed farther away from Seward and deeper into the wilderness.
There were stretches where there wasn’t a building, road, power line, or really any obvious sign of civilization anywhere.
Just mountains.
Water.
Wildlife.
And a boat full of people periodically running from one side of the vessel to the other whenever somebody spotted something.
Sea Lions, Eagles, Whales… and Orcas
The scenery alone would have made the excursion worthwhile.
Then Alaska started showing off.
We saw sea lions, gathered together along the rocky coastline doing what sea lions seem to do best: lounging around while occasionally making enough noise to remind everyone that the rocks belonged to them.
There were bald eagles, too.
Seeing a bald eagle in photographs or on television is one thing. Seeing one in Alaska, surrounded by mountains and wilderness, feels completely different. It’s one of those animals that somehow fits perfectly into the landscape.
Then came the whales.
We spotted humpback whales, which immediately turned a boat full of tourists into wildlife spotters. Everyone watched the water, waiting for another blow, another back breaking the surface, or the appearance of a tail before the whale disappeared again.
Every sighting produced a new wave of excitement.
But then came the moment I definitely wasn’t expecting.
Killer whales.
Not just one.
Multiple killer whales.
Suddenly, every camera on the boat seemed pointed in the same direction.
Watching orcas move through the water in the wild was one of those experiences that instantly became a highlight of the entire Alaska trip. There was no aquarium glass, no carefully timed show, and certainly no guarantee they would even appear.
They were simply out there.
We were visitors in their world.
For a photographer, it was both incredible and mildly stressful.
The boat was moving.
The whales were moving.
Everyone around me was moving.
And I was trying to watch the experience with my own eyes while simultaneously convincing myself that I absolutely needed approximately 700 photographs of it.
That’s wildlife photography.
Sometimes you capture the perfect moment.
Sometimes you capture an excellent photograph of the exact patch of water where a killer whale had been half a second earlier.
Either way, seeing multiple orcas swimming through the waters of Alaska is something I won’t forget.
Then Came the Glaciers
As incredible as the wildlife was, there was still another major reason I had booked this excursion.
Glaciers.
There is something difficult to describe about seeing a massive glacier from the water.
At first, your brain doesn’t really understand the scale. You look at this giant wall of ice in the distance and think it looks impressive.
Then the boat gets closer.
And closer.
And suddenly you realize that what looked like a relatively small wall of ice is actually enormous.
The colors were incredible—whites, grays, and deep shades of blue buried within the ice, surrounded by dark mountains and cold Alaskan water.
But the glaciers weren’t just something to look at.
They were something to hear.
There would be cracking.
Popping.
Deep rumbling sounds coming from somewhere inside the ice.
Every sound made everyone on the boat turn toward the glacier.
And then we got to see it happen.
Pieces of ice broke away from the glacier and crumbled into the water below.
It is one thing to see glacier calving in a documentary.
It is completely different to be standing there watching it happen.
The ice breaks.
For a brief moment it falls almost silently.
Then it crashes into the water.
The sound arrives.
The water moves.
And everyone aboard collectively realizes they just witnessed a tiny piece of a landscape that has been changing for thousands of years.
It was beautiful, powerful, and another reminder of just how small you can feel standing in the middle of Alaska.
Naturally, I kept taking pictures.
I’ll Have My Margarita on Glacier Ice
Of course, after spending the day surrounded by ancient ice, there was only one logical question:
Can we put some of that in a margarita?
Apparently, yes.
At some point during the excursion, members of the crew fished glacier ice directly out of the water.
Actual glacier ice.
Which then found its way into my margarita.
Because if you’re going to have a margarita while cruising through Alaska, you might as well have it chilled with a piece of glacier floating in the glass.
Was glacier ice fished out of the ocean actually safe to put into a drink?
No clue.
Did I bother asking that question at the time?
Absolutely not.
I was standing aboard a boat in Kenai Fjords National Park, surrounded by mountains and glaciers, after seeing humpback whales and multiple killer whales. Someone offered me a margarita chilled with glacier ice they had just pulled from the Alaskan water.
You don’t ruin a moment like that with unnecessary questions.
It wasn’t until later, when I was going through my photos from the excursion, that I noticed something.
Seagulls.
Seagulls sitting quite comfortably on various chunks of floating ice.
Suddenly, I had questions.
Quite a few questions, actually.
I started looking at those photos, then thinking about my margarita, then looking at the birds again.
Hmmm.
Maybe there were certain aspects of the glacier-ice harvesting process I was better off not investigating.
But sometimes you just have to live in the moment.
And in that particular moment, I was drinking a margarita cooled by a piece of ancient Alaskan glacier while cruising through Kenai Fjords National Park.
I’ve had margaritas in plenty of places.
I’ve had cleaner-looking ice in plenty of places.
But I’ve never had another margarita that came with quite that combination of glaciers, whales, killer whales, spectacular scenery, and questionable decisions.
No regrets.
Well…
Maybe a few questions.
But no regrets.
Six Hours Goes Surprisingly Fast
Six hours sounds like a long time to spend on a boat.
It didn’t feel like it.
There was always something happening.
A sea lion on the rocks.
A bald eagle overhead.
A humpback whale surfacing.
Someone yelling that they spotted something in the distance.
Multiple killer whales moving through the water.
A glacier looming ahead.
Ice breaking away and crashing into the sea.
Or, apparently, someone handing me a margarita containing a chunk of glacier.
I’ve always been drawn to being on the water, and there’s something peaceful about watching the shoreline slowly pass while having nowhere else you need to be at that exact moment.
For those six hours, my world became pretty simple.
Watch the water.
Watch the mountains.
Look for wildlife.
Take pictures.
Drink glacier margarita.
Repeat as necessary.
Eventually, though, the boat turned back toward Seward.
Civilization slowly returned.
And my six-hour detour into Kenai Fjords National Park came to an end.
Back to the Railroad
There was one slight problem.
My adventure wasn’t remotely finished.
I still had to get back on the Alaska Railroad.
By this point, I had already been awake for what felt like an entire lifetime. I had walked to the train station, ridden across a chunk of Alaska, eaten reindeer sausage for breakfast, explored Kenai Fjords National Park by boat for six hours, photographed sea lions, bald eagles, humpback whales, killer whales, mountains, and glaciers, watched ice crumble into the sea, and drank a margarita chilled with glacier ice.
And now I had another long train ride ahead of me.
Fortunately, GoldStar Service meant dinner, drinks, comfortable seating, and another opportunity to watch Alaska roll past those curved glass windows.
So I settled back in for the return trip to Anchorage.
By the time the train finally pulled into the station, the entire adventure had stretched to around 15½ hours.
And because this was Alaska in May, I stepped off the train after 10 PM into something that barely resembled nighttime.
The sky was still bright.
I started walking back toward my hotel, exhausted but not quite ready to call it a day on an empty stomach.
Then, illuminated by Alaska’s absurdly late daylight, I spotted exactly what I needed:
A reindeer sausage cart.
Apparently one serving of reindeer sausage wasn’t enough for the day.
Breakfast had started with reindeer sausage.
My late-night walk ended with reindeer sausage.
I appreciate symmetry in my adventures.
Worth the Ridiculously Long Day
Was combining the Alaska Railroad and a six-hour Kenai Fjords boat excursion into one massive 15½-hour adventure a little excessive?
Absolutely.
Would I do it again?
Also absolutely.
There are trips where I remember individual destinations, and then there are days where the entire experience becomes one giant memory.
May 14, 2022 was one of those days.
I started the morning walking through a strangely bright Anchorage before most people were awake. I watched Alaska unfold through the glass dome of a train. I cruised through Kenai Fjords National Park surrounded by mountains and glaciers. I saw sea lions, bald eagles, humpback whales, and multiple killer whales. I watched pieces of glacier break away and crash into the water.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I drank a margarita chilled with glacier ice that had been fished directly out of the Alaskan water.
Then I climbed aboard a train again and watched the landscape pass by until late into the evening.
Finally, I walked back to my hotel under a sky that still hadn’t figured out it was supposed to be nighttime, eating reindeer sausage.
It was long.
It was exhausting.
It was beautiful.
It was slightly ridiculous.
And it was one of those adventures that reminded me why I keep wanting to see what else is out there.
Sometimes a weekend is enough. Sometimes you just have to squeeze a train ride, six hours on a boat, whales, orcas, glaciers, a questionable glacier margarita, and two servings of reindeer sausage into a single day.
That’s Alaska.
