ADVENTURE LIKE A LOCAL: shoup glacier
Looking for a new adventure or visiting and just want ideas on where resident Alaskas go for adventure? Check out this trip from Boardroom member Haleigh!
The highlights:
Location: Valdez, AK
Time of Year: Late May
Duration: 2-3 day trip (12 hours of kayaking)
An orca, otter, seal, sea lion, bird, and glacier filled remote weekend kayaking to the Upper Shoup Bay in Valdez. We stayed in the Moraine Public Use Cabin and rented kayaks from Pangea for the best weekend ever.
The full trip:
We headed out of Valdez toward Shoup bay at 4:30am on a Saturday, kayaked in still ocean water for ~5 hours to time it right to get to the upper Shoup Bay channel at high tide. The Moraine and Kittiwake Cabins are up there looking out a the Shoup Glacier.
We spent Sunday exploring the glacier in the sun and then timed our departure on Monday with high tide again. The channel down has some rapids to it so the higher the tide the better!
The way back in the early AM is when we saw a pod of orcas nearby which was both terrifying and incredible.
Recommendations: pick a good paddling partner & bring binoculars!