This 10-day run up inside passage in mostly protected waters in spring is gorgeous. We head north from Seattle up the east side of Vancouver Island through the fjords of British Columbia across the top of Hecate Strait into Alaska. This course is women-only (see early October for our co-ed course). 

Keku Strait, between Kupreanof and Kuiu Islands, is one of the richest fossil grounds in Alaska. The formation dates to the Devonian (roughly 400 million years ago) as a tropical reef, with corals, brachiopods, trilobites, and crinoids being the most common fossils. We'll see lots of otters and whales. 

A remote anchorage on the gulf, Lituya extends six miles east to three glaciers. It has a rich geology, salmon streams, and wolves and brown bears. But it isn't to be trifled with: in 1786 a French expedition 21 men at the entrance; in 1958 a rock wall collapsed sending a 1,720 foot wave down the bay.

Icy Bay is utterly spectacular. Guyot, Yahtse, and Tyndall Glaciers calve ice into the bay from the north, Giant Malaspina Glacier is a short river ride to the southeast. Mount St. Elias, the second-highest peak in North America, dominates the skyline. The sandspit is covered in wildflowers.

More than 45 glaciers empty into Prince William Sound. It is a superb place to study the effects of climate change: Columbia Glacier has retreated 15 miles since we first visited it (but it's still there), and the waters are protected from the open ocean by a chain of islands. Wildlife abounds.

At least 38 glaciers flow into Kenai Fjords. The fjords themselves are long, narrow glacier-cut valleys, submerged by rising sea levels and sinking land, that eventually empty into Gulf of Alaska. There is no more spectacular (and profoundly remote) place to witness the effects of climate change.

Afognak Island, east of Kodiak, is mostly a Sitka spruce rainforest dotted with muskeg bogs. The coast has hundreds of inlets and bays with healthy kelp forests. Its home to seabirds, bald eagles, otters, brown bears, elk, and moose. We'll likely see runs of sockeye and coho salmon. 

Dinosaurs once roamed Alaska. On this expedition expect to find dinosaur footprints, ammonites, fossil leaves of conifers and sequoias, and possibly bones and teeth of hadrosaurs and maybe even theropods. You’ll also see volcanoes, bears, and whales. You'll swing rock picks and get your hands dirty.

Explore the north rim of the Gulf of Alaska with us on this 12-day course along the Alaskan Peninsula and the wilderness landscapes of Katmai and Aniakchak Bay, famous for their volcanoes, glaciers, dinosaur footprints, and giant bears. This course is women-only (see early October for our co-ed course.

The Kodiak islands -- Kodiak, Afognak, Shuyak, Sitkinak, and Tugiak -- are rich in native, Russian, and American history and dense with wildlife. Our 12-day course will include all these islands plus a visit across Shelikof Strait to Katmai. This course is co-ed. Couples are welcome to apply.