Vital statistics have rarely been so eye-catching. Alaska’s Prince William Sound has 300 miles of savagely spectacular shoreline laced with the highest coastal mountains on earth, plunging from 2,134 metres (7,000 feet) straight into 600-metre-deep ocean. It’s drizzled with hundreds of glaciers, 20 of them snaking to the sea where they spew out millions of tonnes of icebergs each day.

But if the figures are dazzling, the reality is even better: the all-you-can-eat National Geographic banquet comes with a generous side serving of wildlife from orcas to bears and sea lion. It’s like Cumbria on steroids, with a safari thrown into the mix.

Even better news is that the most effective way to access the Sound – the northern end of the Gulf of Alaska – is also the most exhilarating: kayaking. Our week of paddling and camping produced immediate bonding with American IT experts, a Russian trader and a grouchy Welsh accountant: Big Brother in the Great Outdoors.

We might have been mixed together in the area ravaged by the Exx- on Valdez oil spill in 1989, but there was no evidence of the catastrophe as we floated past roaring waterfalls and deep green mountain slopes. Early strokes pulled us further into a fjord towards the siren call of calving ice.

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The culprit was the Shoup, a blue-grey toothpaste squeeze of a glacier, reached by carrying our kayaks through shallow water between two bays. It was teeth-chatteringly cold. Within seconds, the Welsh accountant, who unwisely sported open-toed sandals, was wincing with pain. A short while later he appeared to be crying. “Fall in and you have five minutes before you’re unconscious,” warned our square-jawed guide, Erik. “Life expectancy is 15 minutes.”

Shoup was worth the risk. We paddled to within a kilometre of its snarling, groaning, roaring face, which formed the mesmerising backdrop for that night’s camp site – the first of many barnstorming locations to pitch tent and scoff steaks, stews and pastas like a hungry American. The only possible drawback was scenic fatigue.

It’s a trip where you become highly tuned to the rhythm of nature and its primeval urge to reproduce, from massive colonies of breeding kittiwakes and clumps of punchy sea lion to millions of salmon, radars locked on their birthplace for spawning. In Sawmill Cove on day three, the whole river boiled with pinks and the bank was littered with their carcasses nibbled by predators. It made fishing in Scotland seem ludicrously bad value – and produced some of the freshest sushi I’ve ever tasted.

But that was just one suit in a whole deck of wildlife from eagles, puffins and cormorants to otters and inquisitive seals. On day six, as we slalomed through chunks of ice from distant Columbia Glacier – a giant white serpent five times longer than Shoup – an orca arced past our slow-moving kayaks: a dramatic Alaskan freeze frame to remember for the rest of my urban life.

Perhaps high on nature, we celebrated the killer whale’s graceful cameo with a short, sharp shock of cryo-genics. Small bergs were harnessed as diving boards for a wild leap into chest-deep, seriously cool briny – a thrilling, chilling, frankly lunatic finale to a showstopper of a week.

Need to know

Ian Belcher kayaked with Pangaea Adventures (001 907 835 8442). A six-day Shoup-to-Glacier Island kayaking trip costs £667 (includes guides, food and equipment).

Kayaking can be part of an itinerary with Travelbag (0870 814 6545) which offers flights, car hire and eight nights in Anchorage, Valdez and Homer from £1,249.

More information: Alaska Travel Industry Association

Alaskan adventures

Salmon

Go Fishing Worldwide (020-8742 1556) offers wonderful fishing in the Tikchik Narrows where 75 per cent of the king, silver, coho and chum salmon are caught. The 11-day trip includes two nights in Anchorage and seven nights at a remote lodge reached by float plane. Daily flights with a pilot/guide locate the premier spots. The cost is £5,160 including all flights, full-board accommodation, daily flyouts and guiding.

Bears

Frontier Travel (020-8776 8709) offers 12-night trips including a visit to Anchorage, a stay at the luxurious Alyeska Prince Resort for hiking in the epic peaks around Girdwood, the quirky coastal town of Homer, Hallo Bay’s coastal brown bears, three nights exploring the fjords near Seward and a night on Fox Island. From £2,998 including flights, taxes, accommodation and car hire.

Mountains

Audley Travel (01993 838700) offers 12 nights’ self-drive holidays including a visit to Denali National Park to view grizzlies near Mt McKinley, the second city of Fairbanks and the WrangellSt Elias National Park, home to nine of America’s highest peaks, plus a flight into a mining ghost town, ending with a glacier cruise. From £2,700 including flights and taxes, accommodation, some meals, all trips.

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