Alaska Glaciers + Fjords by Zodiac: HX Expeditions Cruise
Let Erin and Phil book this same experience for you, personally! We started ABC Trips to offer our bespoke itineraries to those seeking authentic culture, epic landscapes, and uncompromising luxury. 👉🏼 https://abctrips.com In my previous vid, we toured HX’s Roald Amundsen — an expedition vessel that only carries a few hundred guests. See, the mega-ships can get you to Alaska. The Amundsen and her Zodiacs — they get you into it. First up: Misty Fjords National Monument — 2.3 million acres (or just under a million hectares) of protected wilderness that John Muir called one of the most beautiful places he'd ever seen. And Muir? My guy had seen some places. We pulled into Punch Bowl Cove with just a handful of us on the boat — cliff walls straight up like El Cap, waterfalls that flat-out refuse to quit, and mist so committed that "Misty Fjords" ends up being the understatement of the trip. You’re wondering about the rain? Nah, they call that “liquid sunshine” and it’s the key to these lush backdrops. But it's not all gawking. One Zodiac run turned into real science — we dropped a Secchi disk, the oldest tool in oceanography, to measure water clarity, and pulled samples for salinity and temperature that feed NOAA's harmful algae bloom project. Colt’s been in online school for 6 years and this is just one of his many classrooms around the world. Learning, expedition-style. Then Icy Bay — which, wild fact, didn't exist a hundred years ago. It was buried under a glacier that's since retreated about thirty miles, with Mount St. Elias looming overhead at eighteen thousand feet (or 5,500 meters), one of the highest peaks in North America. And the scenery's grand finale: College Fjord, where an 1899 expedition named every glacier after East Coast U.S. universities — Harvard, Yale, the Ivy League roll call — but refused to name any of them after Princeton. Petty, but iconic. Harvard Glacier is two miles wide and still advancing, and when a chunk calves off, you hear it before you see it — like thunder rolling through your chest. That fizzing as the ice floats by? Thousand-year-old air escaping. Sailors call it "bergy seltzer” (as in “iceberg-y”). Hooked yet? We can set you up with any of this — reach out at abctrips.com and we'll match you to the right sailing and the best discounts. Follow so you don't miss what's next: same Zodiacs, but this time it's all about the wildlife — bears, eagles, otters, seals and sea lions — the works. And if this vid hits, the hour-long expedition film is on our YouTube channel. Browse our unheard of last-minute deals on vacations, resorts, and adventure cruises around the world: https://abctrips.com/