Columbia Glacier is the largest tidewater glacier in Prince William Sound and the biggest natural reason to visit Valdez. Day boats leave the harbour and cross water scattered with blue ice, sea otters, seals, seabirds, and sometimes whales before reaching the glacier's broken face.
You do not always get close to the ice front; conditions and icebergs decide that. But the journey through Columbia Bay is the point as much as the destination, with the scale of the Chugach Mountains and floating ice making the sound feel enormous.