Alaska's Inside Passage cruise is a wild act

WITH its iceberg-filled fjords, mighty glaciers and snowy peaks, Alaska's Inside Passage gets Philip Young's seal of approval during an adventure cruise.

Attention-seeking ... Alaska's iceberg-filled fjords, mighty glaciers and snow-capped peaks are mesmerising.

WITH its iceberg-filled fjords, mighty glaciers and snow-capped peaks, Alaska demands attention.

Add wild frontier history, rich wildlife and breathtaking beauty and there's little wonder Alaska's famous Inside Passage is a headline act for cruise ships.

A seven-night cruise aboard the Sun Princess, taking in Ketchikan, Tracy Arm, Juneau, Skagway and Victoria is a series of headline-grabbing highlights.


Terminator runs kitchen ...
THE kitchen, or galley, might seem a strange place to start but anyone who has been a passenger will testify to the strong link between food and cruising.

On a tour of the galley we are introduced to Guenther Kopf, food and beverage first purser on the Sun Princess. He's a tall, muscular Austrian with movie-star looks and his voice bears an uncanny resemblance to another Austrian movie star.

I can't help myself: I imagine him standing before the kitchen staff; he's got the buzz cut, Schwarzenegger swagger, the dark glasses, leather jacket, shotgun ... well, maybe not the shotgun. He barks out his instruction: "All hunger will be eliminated!"

Indeed, that seems to be the main mission for many of the crew.

Meals are a five-course affair. Leave something on your plate and concerned waiting staff will rush to your side and check everything is okay. Decline dessert and you're met with incredulous disbelief: "Are you quite certain, sir? Perhaps a little cheese platter?"


Man gains 50kg in a week:
Crew remove door to release passenger wedged in cabin
THIS seems quite possible, were it not for so many activities on board.

The gym has every bit of equipment you'd expect plus regular spin, step and stretch classes.

The Promenade Deck doubles as a jogging track – two laps is about a kilometre. There's a golf simulator, swimming pools, basketball court, table tennis, the ubiquitous shuffle board and the list goes on. Then, of course, you can always spend time on shore climbing glaciers or catching fish.

Michelin Man lands monsters of the deep
WELL, they aren't exactly monsters, but the yellow-eye stonefish – a type of bright orange perch – caught on a fishing trip in Ketchikan are big enough to provide a course for six people back on board ship that night.

The fishing trip involves a four-hour excursion aboard an open 7m skiff. Every passenger is equipped with layer upon layer of waders, waterproof jacket, gumboots, lifejacket, beanies and gloves – all on top of jumpers, trousers and thermals you're already wearing.

You feel like the Michelin Man but every layer is needed when we hit the water: the ride is cold, windy and wet.

Our skipper is Jay Lloyd, managing director of Baranof Skiff Excursions, who knows the waters well and heads for Carroll Inlet, a bay where there is little breeze and the fish are biting.


Woman survives tangle with shark
THE cloud lifts to provide a magical backdrop on a memorable trip – glassy waters, majestic mountains and deafening silence.

One member of the party also hooks a small shark (strictly speaking it's some sort of dog fish but it looks like a shark) that is more than a metre long and takes some effort to haul in before being photographed and released.


Cruise ship rams iceberg
RAMS is probably a little too strong, but the following day's cruise into Tracy Arm means dodging decent-sized icebergs and gently nudging others aside as we slowly cruise through the astounding scenery of this amazing stretch of water.

Our captain, Nicholas Carlton, is quick to remind us that icebergs and ships don't really mix, but on this particular morning the Sun Princess and the incredible array of brilliant blue, stark white and crystal-clear icebergs are a wonderful combination. A ray of sun glints off the smooth, bare cliffs, which climb hundreds of metres on each side of the fjord.

Waterfalls fed by melting ice and snow thunder down their sides and stunning snow-capped peaks are revealed at every turn.

Take it all in over a gourmet champagne breakfast enjoyed from the balcony of your stateroom, and it will be a memory to last a lifetime.


Trekker finds elixir of youth; ancient glacier reveals secrets
GLACIER water is the best you'll find anywhere – period. There's no better drink than a draught of freezing water from a pool on the top of Mendenhall Glacier at the end of an amazing ice trek.

And after a couple of hours mastering our "front pointing" – digging the front of our boot's crampons into the ice as we scale steep walls of frozen terrain – we are ready for a drink. The water, melted into a brilliant blue pool from 2000-year-old ice, tastes so pure and refreshing, we immediately feel years younger.

In fact, the whole experience on the glacier, just outside Alaska's capital Juneau, is nothing short of exhilarating.

It starts with a thrilling helicopter ride over the Herbert and Mendenhall glaciers and touches down amid a landscape of massive ice pillars, plunging crevasses and lakes formed on top of a giant river of ice.

Our NorthStar Trekking guide takes us up the glacier and demonstrates how to safely use our ice picks and crampons to get around.

About an hour later we reach a little body of water called Kelly's Lake before we reluctantly begin our descent back to the chopper.


Bear encounter shocks train
THE bright-voiced commentary on Skagway's White Pass Yukon Route railway trip mentions in passing that "Only 35 workers died in the two years, two months, two weeks and two days it took to build the track". The labourers risked extreme cold, highly volatile gunpowder work and wild beasts in building the railway, which would transport supplies to gold diggers in theYukon.

Today there's little risk to life and limb on our three-hour train trip that winds its way into the rugged Alaskan wilderness.

But there are still wild beasts about.

Our trip encounters two bears. The first, about 10 minutes into the trip, is little more than a bear-shaped blur disappearing into the undergrowth. The second is more impressive.

A brown bear stands in full view for several seconds as the train passes. It is just one of the highlights on a trip that takes in steep ravines, raging rivers, tunnels and high bridges.

Late spring snows still lie deep beside the track as we reach White Pass and cross the Canadian border. It certainly gives you a feel for the rugged conditions the frontier settlers faced.

Cyclist earns $120 an hour
IT sounds like extortion, but the $30 per person charge for a leisurely trundle in the back of a four-seater cycle cab through the pretty streets of Victoria – our last port of call on the Inside Passage route – is not bad value.

The hour-long pedal around this beautiful Canadian city on Vancouver Island takes us through an older area of Victoria, with heritage properties and leafy avenues, and passes through Beacon Hill Park before dropping us outside the grand Empress Hotel.

We enjoy a drink in the balcony bar as the sun sets on the final day of our Sun Princess cruise to Alaska.

We return to ship before its midnight departure – four sharing a cab for a $10 fare. Hmmm, maybe our cyclist is on a pretty little earner after all.

The writer was a guest of Princess Cruises.

The Sunday Telegraph