August 1 - Seward Day 1

Arrived in Seward yesterday and looked around to see where everything was at.  We booked a glacier/wildlife cruise for tomorrow, so hoping the weather holds out.  Seward is a nice town, but pretty expensive for everything.  It would be a lot nicer with less clouds and rain, but that's Alaska in August we hear.

We drove over to check out Exit Glacier, just north of town.  It is within the Kenai Fjords National Park and just one of the many glaciers fed by the Harding Ice Field, which covers 300 square miles.  After a stop at the visitor center, we walked up to the overlook of the bottom of the glacier and the outwash plain.

Glaciers are real blue on cloudy days, even close up.  It taked 100 feet of compacted snow to make 10 feet of glacier ice!

We decided to take a hike up the Harding Ice Field Trail.  At around 4 miles and a 3,000 foot elevation gain one way, we didn't plan on making it all the way, but hoped to make it to the Cliff Overlook about half way.  It was drizzling rain and the trail was pretty steep going up.  We ended up in the clouds, but could still see all the wildflowers and views of the glacier now and then.

Here are some lupine.  Roxane wanted this pic for here computer desktop background.

We made it to the first overlook and watched some ice hikers crossing the crevasses in the glacier.

 

Walking across these tied onto six other people didn't look like something we wanted to do.  But some other hikers that we talked to convince us to go a bit further to the Cliff Overlook for a good view of the glacier.  By the time we climbed what seemed like another 1,000 feet straight up, we were really in the clouds and had to wait for them to pass to get a good view.

Sun would have been nice though, it was still pretty cool and rainy at about 2,500 feet of elevation.  We had enough climbing though, so headed back down.  The hike down was only a bit easier and we were glad when it was over. 

Back at the trailer, nursing our sore backs and knees, we watched this eagle having some dinner while a tour boat like the one we are supposed to be on tomorrow went by.