Alaska Sea Kayaking
July 2024

My parents are 74 years old and celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary this year.

My sister decided that a 4-day backcountry sea kayaking trip in remote southeast Alaska was the best way to bring us all together for a celebration. She knew two coves that could possibly be connected by water during a specific very high tide each year, and decided she wanted to see if we could time our entire trip perfectly to paddle between them. Little did she know that a brown (grizzly) bear would choose this exact same route at this exact same time.

Chelsea lived in Gustavus, the small “town” serving Glacier Bay National Park, for a number of years prior to 2016. She knows Glacier Bay quite well and forgot that I have only ever done one other overnight kayaking trip—the Grand Canyon, with her, in 2020. So when she asked me to help put this together, I was essentially, like, “I know how to camp…?”

I’ve never had a more tumultuous travel experience than I did getting to/from Alaska. Delta’s recent technological shutdown caused more havoc than I care to admit. In addition, they lost 100% of my luggage, which represented more than 50% of the group gear for my entire family’s kayak trip. If my gear didn’t get to Alaska, the trip couldn’t happen for any of us.

Well, my gear didn’t get to Alaska. And to make a literally-one-hour-long-story short, I had 20 minutes in a Juneau outdoor gear shop to outfit myself and my family for a multi-night sea kayaking trip in one of the rainiest places on earth. A place that is lucky to see thermometers hit 55 degrees in the summer and also, as we learned, is absolutely filled with wildlife.

Coastal brown bears, tufted and horned puffins, sea lions, mountain goats, harbor seals, harbor porpoises, humpback whales, wolves, and sea otters were seen. It was wildly full of wildlife. And one brown bear found us directly in the way of where he wanted to go, and chose to spend a half hour less than 50 feet away from us, munching on grass, while mosquitos and noseeums munched on us.

Definitely a trip-of-a-lifetime with my entire family.