Razor Clam Digging Adventure in South West Cook Inlet, Alaska

It was late March when my wife Rohyn and I decided it was time for a Razor Clam trip. The closest place to find them near Anchorage is a remote beach 120 miles southwest of town along the shores of Cook Inlet. After checking the weather forecast and looking at the ocean tide predictions, we found the picture-perfect day with a huge minus low tide to make our journey come together. After loading our gear and prepping the Super Cub, we launched on what would become one of the highlight adventures of our year.

Me(Jared) with a bucket of nice Razor Clams

The Flight

We launched out of Lake Hood Seaplane Base on a cool, clear morning. After takeoff, you cross Knik Arm almost immediately, pass Point MacKenzie, and then turn southwest to follow the coastline of Cook Inlet. It’s one of those routes that never gets old—snow-covered mountains filling the right window, wide beaches and open water stretching out to the left.

As you head south from Anchorage, the scenery changes fast. Marshy waterfowl flats fade into thick timber and rolling hills, and eventually those hills give way to long, sandy stretches along the shore.

Flying low down the coastline, we rounded the last point of land and saw exactly what we’d hoped for: miles of exposed, sand-covered tidal flats from a massive -4-foot tide. When the charts show big negative tides like that, you know the clam digging is going to be as good as it gets. The wind was calm, so I set up and landed on the gently sloped beach, keeping the rollout straight on the firm sand. We parked the Cub carefully and chalked the wheels with pieces of driftwood so it wouldn’t creep downhill, then unloaded the shovels, backpacks, and everything else we’d need for the long walk out onto the flats.

The Walk to the Clam Beds

The walk starts easy on firm sand, but for about the first 50 yards from shore, you hit a stretch of ankle-deep mud that makes you question your life choices. Thankfully, it doesn’t last long. Soon enough, the mud gives way to hard-packed sand again, and we settle into the half-mile walk offshore before we start seeing signs of razor clams. It's hard to stay focused during this hike when you're being constantly distracted by the views. Along the way, we saw multiple Bald Eagles fighting off flocks of Sea Gulls, and a couple of Brown Bears scanning the sand for clams and other marine life to feed on.

The Digging

The telltale sign of where a clam is hiding is a small, perfectly round hole in the sand. If you lightly tap next to it, the clam reacts instantly, digging deeper to make its escape. That’s when the race begins.

Now digging them out takes more finesse than you’d expect. Their shells are surprisingly fragile—one careless stab with the shovel and you’ll shatter it. Once you get really good, you learn to slide the shovel gently into the sand and actually feel for the clam before you start shoveling too hard. When you’ve dug deep enough, you might catch a quick glimpse of the shell, but only for a split second before it disappears again. Then comes the real challenge. You reach down, feeling around in the cold sand until you grab the edge of the shell and start working it loose. Sounds easy, right? Think again. Those little clams can put up a serious fight, and it's pretty humbling being in a wrestling match with a two-ounce mollusk with your arm elbow-deep in the sand. If and when you finally win the standoff and drop that hard-earned clam into the bucket, it feels like a small victory, and surely makes for an addictive challenge.

When you get yourself into a good stretch of sand, you can be surrounded by hundreds of clam holes in the sand. Now, as fun and exciting as digging these little guys can be, you have to be careful not to harvest too many of them. Even though there is no limit to how many you can bring home, half of a 5-gallon bucket can take up to 4 hours to clean. I always find myself in the position of being the "bad guy", telling my Rohyn that it's time to stop digging.

Once I finally convince her of the amount of work we have ahead of us, cleaning all these clams, we start the journey back to the airplane on the beach. I like to find a pool of water on the tide flats where we can get a good saltwater rinse on all of our clams, so they are nice and clean when we get home. This is the perfect time to get pictures of our haul, and once more, realize how much work we are going to have when we get home.

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Back to the Beach

After the long walk across the tide flats, we made it back to the airplane. It was still a beautiful sunny day, and the wind wasn't blowing, so we set up for a picnic on the beach. Rohyn is always in charge of packing food for our fly-out adventures. Not only does she put together the perfect lunch, but I'm always too eager to get out of the house and in the air to pack anything besides a thermos of coffee. So I'm no use when it comes to the responsibility of packing our food. We spent an hour or so in the sun on the beach, watching the birds and bears in the distance, enjoying the solitude. Once we painfully decided it was time to go home, we got the Super Cub loaded up, said goodbye to the beach, and took off with the nose pointed for town.