Glacier Hiking & Climbing

With over 27,000 glaciers, 5 percent of Alaska is covered by ice year-round. Glaciers are located throughout the Inside Passage, Southcentral Alaska’s coastal waters, and the high mountains of Interior Alaska. One quarter of Alaska’s glaciers — more than 4.5 million acres — can be found within Alaska’s national parks.

The power of Alaska’s glaciers moves mountains, carves rivers, and stirs the imagination. From tidewater glaciers to mountain cirques to enormous icefields spanning across the horizon, Alaska has more active glaciers than anywhere else in the world. Many of them are surprisingly accessible by land, air, or water.

Alaska has many accessible glaciers across the state that allow visitors to experience a frozen wonderland even in the height of summer. Guided glacier tours allow you to have safe, firsthand encounters with Alaska’s magnificent glaciers. Alaska’s glacier hiking and climbing trips are designed for a variety of interest and experience levels. You can raft or kayak through a sea of ice to the face of a tidewater glacier, fly over mountain cirques, take an afternoon helicopter tour and land on a glacier, or test your footing across icy rivers along a glacial moraine. For those who want to spend more time experiencing Alaska's glaciers and are feeling more adventurous, you can trek across an icefield, explore ice caves, learn technical ice-climbing skills during a multi-day climbing workshop, or take an overnight camping trip on a slow-moving glacier.