RV and Outdoor Adventures of Julie & Tom: Our Stay at Fox Island

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Our Stay at Fox Island – Resurrection Bay Alaska

Location: Resurrection Bay Kenai National Park

Date: 8/25/2013 - 8/26/2013

Our first real day of adventure on this trip included the train ride on the Costal Classic which took us from Anchorage down to Seward. Seward is a small town on the northern end of Resurrection Bay and is the main access point to touring Kenai Fjords National Park. Julie and I had reservations to spend a night on Fox Island which was a 20 – 30 minute boat ride from Seward. We made our way to the small boat harbor and got checked in with Kenai Fjords Tours who would be transporting us to the island.

The boat ride to Fox Island, although short, was awesome since the weather was beautiful and the view of the surrounding mountains and their glaciers were amazing. We even spotted some sea otters, floating on their backs and just hanging out in the bay. They didn’t seem at all fazed as our boat stopped to watch them for awhile.

We were dropped off at Fox Island and greeted by their friendly staff and shown to our cabin. This lodge probably only has about 6 – 8 cabins, so the number of people you are sharing this island with is very limited. They’ve just built a new main lodge building which is very nice and comfortable and includes a small dinning area and day room. There is electricity in the main lodge, but not in the cabins. The cabins have battery powered lights, no cell service, no tv, no internet but had awesome views of Resurrection bay and the surrounding mountains. This is definitely a place to get away from the hustle and bustle of every day life and relax.

So, this is the new lodge just completed this spring. The front porch, with the Adirondack chairs is a fantastic place to spend some time and take in the beautiful views. The day use area, where they would serve nightly appetizers, also included a wood burning fireplace and was a great place to hang out and talk with some of the fellow guests and staff.

Here’s a few pictures of inside the lodge looking out onto the bay. What a great view!

This was the cabin that we stayed in. It was nothing fancy, but very comfortable. Plus it had a back porch looking out over the small fresh water pond that was behind the row of cabins.

The lodge offered walks around the island with a park ranger every afternoon. Here is Ranger Chad, who works with the park service, giving us some information on the plants and rocks which are found on this island. We found him to be very knowledgably and could answer any questions we had for him. Plus he’s been in Alaska for a long time, so he had a few good stories about the locals to share with us.

Since we were on vacation, we just had to have a local Alaskan brewed beer while sitting on the lodge porch. With blue skies and a calm bay, this view was hard to beat!

Fox island does have a few hiking trails heading up into the mountain behind the lodge. We did attempt to do one of these hikes, but turned around after about a quarter mile because the trail was pretty rough and it was like hiking through a rain forest. It was wet, slippery and non stop tree roots and downed trees to climb over and around. I t required much more effort than we wanted to give, so we bailed on the hike and decided to walk on the beach. But we did get a good picture showing the fresh water lake, the spit of land with the row of cabins and then the bay beyond.

Here’s just a random sampling our pictures of our one day stay at Fox Island. We would definitely like to return some day!

This route shows our short hike we took behind the main lodge. We didn’t get very far!

Fox Island / Resurrection Bay Hike at EveryTrail

Resurrection Bay and the mountains beyond.

Looking back towards Seward and Mount Marathon. Every Fourth of July Seward holds a race where runners climb to the top of this mountain and then back to the downtown area. The winning time this year was 43 minutes which is hard to believe when you see how high and steep this mountain this mountain is.