The Exit Glacier valley, its ice tongue descending between rocky slopes, a plain of grey and golden sediment in the background under a cloudy sky.
The Exit Glacier valley. The access road only opens between May and October; the rest of the year it stays cut off by snow.Enrico Blasutto / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0·CC BY-SA 4.0

01 A mild winter, for Alaska

The four moments that define the year

JunThe driest month

59 mm and nearly 19 hours of light. The most reliable combination of the year for getting out on the fjord.

JulThe warmest month

16.8 °C mean high. Coincides with peak cruise season and the Mount Marathon race on the 4th.

SepThe wettest month

251 mm, more than triple June's total. Also the best autumn colour and fewer cruise crowds.

DecDark but mild

0.7 °C high. Mild for Alaska, but with very few daylight hours.

02 September beats every other month on water

Autumn does not arrive after the rain here. It arrives inside it.

03 June and July are the dry window

A fjord in Kenai Fjords National Park, dark rock walls dropping straight into the sea, meltwater cascades and low cloud covering the summits.
One of the park's fjords in September. Fog and low cloud are common outside the June–July window.Enrico Blasutto / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0·CC BY-SA 4.0

04 Nearly nineteen hours of light in June

The fractured surface of Exit Glacier in September, deep blue crevasses between white blocks and a strip of dark rock behind.
Exit Glacier's ice in September. Beneath the surface, the wettest month is also the one that exposes the crevasses' deepest blue.Enrico Blasutto / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0·CC BY-SA 4.0

05 How to decide based on what you want to see

The year in one sentence: in Seward the cold is never the enemy, because the gulf softens it all year round. The enemy, when there is one, is the water, and it arrives just as the landscape gets prettiest to receive it.

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Ana Larrea

When To Go editor · Flowtravel

Ana turns climate data and local calendars into travel decisions.

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