We had a great 2023 trip on the Delphinus II. Especially great in 2023 were the bears, both at Anan Creek and Windfall Harbor/Pack Creek. Now we have dates and pricing in place. Let me know if you’re interested. We can only take six people.
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Join me! I’ve been doing variations of this amazing trip since 1999 (except for a Covid break) Expect bears, whales, ice–and of course–spectacular scenery. With a 55-foot live-aboard, eat-aboard boat as our base, we can take up to six people. You’ll be pampered by a great cook, naturalist/first mate and captain who has an encyclopedic knowledge of everything connected with Alaska natural history. And I’ll give you photography tips so that you come back with some truly memorable photos.Truly, this is the trip of a lifetime! Because we’re on the Inside Passage, we seldom encounter rough water.
This 8 1/2 day trip starts in the little town of Wrangell (accessible via Alaska Airlines jet). We’ll start with a jetboat ride up the spectacular Stikine River with its five-mile-wide muddy mouth to iceberg-filled Stikine Lake, bounded by steep cliffs and waterfalls. We then make our way south to Anan Creek, where black bears (and a few brown bears) congregate at one of the largest pink salmon runs in Alaska in search of food. We follow a trail through lovely rainforest to a viewing platform where we can safely photograph the bears working the waterfall here. Sometimes the bruins are only a few feet away. Then we head back north into whale waters, where hundreds of humpback whales spend the summer feeding before migrating in the fall to winter in Hawaii. Typically we see several smaller groups at a time, and with luck we’ll see breaching and the group feeding behavior known as lunge feeding. Sometimes we see orcas. Next up: we voyage north (often greeted by Dall porpoises) on a long fjord called Seymour Canal to Pack Creek, where we will see brown bears feeding on salmon in a spectacular setting in the wilderness of Admiralty Island. Then, we motor up long Endicott Arm, with its dramatic scenery, to Dawes Glacier, a tidewater behemoth that thunders blue, blue ice into the bay. We’ll linger by these icebergs in appreciation of the unique, fleeting beauty of each crystalline formation. Finally, we finish in Juneau. There’s plenty to do in this bustling capital, which is accessible via Alaska Airlines.
The trip fee includes boat travel and guiding, meals and sleeping accommodations. Not included is roundtrip airfare or gratuities for the first mate and cook. We do short shore walks. You must be able to climb a few steps up and down a ladder to the main deck of the boat. Otherwise the boat is suitable for all ability levels.