Alaska (Skagway)
Trip Summary
Skagway was our third stop (and first land port) on our summer one-way Alaska itinerary on the Island Princess. Rain was forecasted for much of the day, but when we docked, I was delighted to see the sun fully out and shining!
My husband and I had a different excursion planned than his parents, so after taking pictures at the Skagway sign, we went our separate ways to our respective meeting points.
Skagway is pretty famous for its sled dogs and the White Pass Rail, but we wanted to do something a bit more adventurous, so we had looked for tours that included hiking and exploring. I had soon discovered that a lot of tours are all run by the same companies. Some of these companies even own some of the glaciers and the surrounding area, so the only way to see these places was to book the tour through them. This is how we found the Glacier Point Wilderness Safari Tour.
This tour is run by Alaska Shore Tours (that actually runs tours in all the land ports) and has the benefit of giving you a discount if you book more than one tour with them (we booked a tour with them in Juneau, our next port, too). They had generally good reviews, and their customer service is also very helpful. After chatting with the representative to make sure the tour was what we were looking for–adventurous, fun, and challenging–we booked it.
After meeting up with our group, we all climbed aboard the water ferry that would take us to Glacier Point Beach. This was about a 45-minute boat ride that went through the Lynn Canal (one of the longest fjords in North America) and was a very pretty journey. It is an enclosed ferry, but the windows were dirty and fogged up, so my husband and I asked the tour guide if we could sit outside at the back of the ship where there was a small bench.
Luckily, we got permission, because while the ride was a lot bumpier back there, we had unobstructed views for pictures!
And what pictures they were! The Lynn Canal is gorgeous and everywhere you looked, there were jagged peaks, pristine snow, and more bald eagles than I had ever seen.
We stayed there for almost the entire ride but when we felt the ferry start to slow down and our destination point come into sight, we decided to come back inside. And good thing we did! No more than two seconds after we closed the door behind us, the boat hit a massive swell which caused a huge wave to sweep over the top of the boat and drench the back of the boat where we just were. We froze, our hands still on the door behind us, and the entire tour group stared at us with wide eyes, then everyone started screaming and laughing at just how close we came to being absolutely soaked (and it was a chilly day, so the drenching would have definitely put a damper on our morning!).
Having barely escaped disaster, we were still chuckling as we stepped off the boat at our first stop–Glacier Point Beach. The tour group was an extremely big one, so it took a while for everyone to get off the ferry, so my husband and I spent this time taking pictures of the beautiful landscape around us. The sky made for some excellent lighting, and you couldn’t help but just stare at just how beautiful the world could be.
By this time, the tour group was off the boat and we all started heading to the busses that would take us to the canoes that we would paddle to our final destination–the Davidson Glacier. The bus ride wasn’t long and soon, we were putting on lifejackets, grabbing our paddles, and getting in our canoes. We could see the glacier in the distance!
As we paddled closer, we saw that it had melted considerably from the pictures shown on the website, so that was disappointing (but only reinforced our ideas that we had to see Alaska before a lot of the ice was melted and gone!).
The glacier had receded so much that we had to stop at a large beach then hike the rest of the way to the glacier. And this is where I got a little frustrated with the tour because the tour guide did not let us go very far. Some of the group members did not want to hike (and I say hike–it was a beach with some rocks), so we were only allowed to go as far as those passengers were willing to walk–which wasn’t far from the boat.
The tour description on the website lets people know that they have to be in good physical condition and that it is a tour for an active person, but this experience proved to me that people ignore those descriptions. I felt the group was the largest of any of the tours we took in Alaska, and the tour guide seemed stressed in keeping everyone together (and far from the glacier we all paid to see). My husband wandered off to try to sneak some pictures of the glacier from afar and got yelled at twice by the tour guide and even though this was annoying, I could understand the tour guide’s stress. I would be stressed, too, if I had to look after what I felt was such a large group, and some people just up and decided to not even go see the glacier.
Frustrations aside, it was soon time to paddle back, and when we got to Glacier Point Beach again, we took our last pictures.
I was grateful that even though we could not get to see the Davidson Glacier as much as we wanted, we could still see Glacier Point Beach–it was one of the most beautiful spots we saw on the entire cruise.
The ride back on the ferry boat was slower, so my husband and I risked sitting on the outside bench again, and we slowly cruised by mountains, waterfalls, and even rocks holding dozens of seals.
So all in all, the tour earned points for me in its itinerary to Glacier Point Beach, the well-organized transportation, and timeliness of the tour. I understand that they can’t plan for the actions of the passengers, but here is where I felt the group’s size was a big problem. The tour company wants to keep the groups together for safety, but I felt that if they worked with smaller groups and let the groups who wanted to stay on the beach stay and the groups who wanted to get closer to the glacier do that, they could. That way, they could still work with the varying wants of the passengers and keep safety a priority. I imagine it would lessen the stress on the tour guide, too. Also, for the high expense of this tour, smaller groups and more tour guides would be ideal.
Glacier Point Wilderness Safari: B
The tour only took half the day, so in the time remaining before we had to get back on the ship, we wandered around Skagway (and found some of the more popular sights we had read about!).
It is a quaint little town with lots of little shops and eateries that are fun to explore. A lot of the storefronts remind you of what you might see in an old Western, so it was fun to see all the older buildings from that time period when Skagway was first built.
The mountains in the background are also impressive, and half the time I was wandering with my head up at the sky, watching eagles fly overhead. It was a magical place!
But the real magic was yet to come! Back onboard the Island Princess, my husband and I stayed up late watching the sunset off our balcony (the sun didn’t start to set until 10 p.m.!).
It was truly the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen, and it lasted forever, the sun never fully setting but hovering beautifully behind the mountain peaks as we watched in just absolute awe.
Truly a sight that we will remember forever!
Favorite Experiences
Besides the sunset we saw, my favorite part of the day was Glacier Point Beach. It is an absolutely beautiful site and has stunning views, and I wish that more tours visited that place (or that you could even go there by yourself). Unfortunately, it is company property, but even so, it is a gorgeous one and one that should be experienced!
What I Wish I Knew
I wish I knew how big the tour groups were and how that would limit the tour itself. It was frustrating not being able to see the glacier up-close due to the fact that several passengers wanted to stay near the boat and not walk down the beach, but I can understand why the tour guide had to keep people together. I don’t think we could have done anything differently as passengers either read the tour description before they book or they don’t, but just be prepared for that, so you won’t be too disappointed.
Also, I had no idea how much a glacier could recede in a short amount of time. One of the tour pictures on the website shows a huge glacier and the canoe paddling right up next to it, and this was not the case at all for our tour. I don’t know how old the pictures are (or how quickly the glacier had melted and receded), but more realistic pictures should be put on the booking website so that people know more what to expect.
Oh! And if you go on this tour (or really, any tour land tour in Alaska), pack your bug spray, because the mosquitos are unreal! Everything is bigger in Alaska (the sunlight, the plants…and the bugs!). Seriously, these things were something out of a science-fiction movie, so put on bug spray and reapply it often (the mosquitos were the worst after the bus ride when we were putting on our lifejackets, and at times, we even had to put our coats over our heads to keep the beasts away)!
Lastly, be sure to wander around the town of Skagway a bit. It is pretty and makes for some great photos. You can read a lot about these sites (and other places to see in Skagway) in the Skagway Travel Forum and Cruise Critic. There is also a cool walking map here.
All in all, it was still a fun day, and definitely worth a visit if you ever visit Skagway!
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Happy travels!
