Exit Glacier

July 31, 2011

While most of Kenai Fjords National Park is accessible only by boat, there is one short road that goes from the Seward Highway to a Visitor Center. From the Visitor Center, you can do a 1,930 m (1.2 mi) hike to the Exit Glacier, or a 19.3 km- (12 mi-) hike to a huge expanse of ice known as the Harding Icefield. Captain Bob on the Alaskan Explorer told us that the ice in all of the glaciers in the park, including the Northwestern Glacier we visited on July 29th, comes from the Harding Icefield.

I would have loved to have done the hike up to the Harding Icefield. It's supposed to be fantastic. It's listed as "strenuous," and that means strenuous by Alaskan standards. I would plan 15-16 hours for Eric and me to do a hike like that, and since we wanted to see the SeaLife Center as well, the time just wasn't there. I planned instead to hike to the very tip of the Exit Glacier, as I had seen amazing pictures from that point, but the river was too high. The ranger told us it would have required wading knee-deep through very cold water, and we didn't have the equipment for that. So instead, we hiked to the edge of the glacier.

Our first view of the Exit Glacier, from an overlook with a virtual geocache.


The river we would have had to ford if we were going to reach the tip.


Eric in front of the glacier.


Glaciated rocks along the trail.


While we were lucky to have had fabulous weather for most of our stay on the Kenai Peninsula, we could see the fog coming in that portended the cold rainstorm we would leave in the next day.


I loved the marbling of this rock.


Eric photographed me climbing the trail.


He took another picture showing the dramatic trail to the glacier.


Eric took another picture showing the immense size of the glacier.


Yet another glacier picture by Eric.


Eric took my picture at the edge of the glacier. So close to the ice, it was quite cold.


And I took his picture, too. Note the waterfall running off the glacier in the background.


Continuing one of his photographic themes, Eric took a picture of life starting to grow in a recently-devastated environment. Here, the glacier had recently retreated, scraping away everything in its path.


I was fascinated by the layering of the land around us.


In this picture, you can see the expanse of the area left by the retreat of the glacier, and the surrounding hills.


The area beyond the tip of the glacier, called the outwash plain, is wet with glacial melt.


An interpretive sign told us to look at the surrounding hills for glaciers in bowl-shaped depressions, called cirques, left behind by retreating glaciers.


After our fairly quick hike out to the Exit Glacier, Eric drove us a ways up the road back to Cooper Landing, on the Kenai River. The idea had been to get a little closer to the airport and thus have less travel time to catch our 12:30 flight home. After having moved around so much from one place to another, I had changed my mind and wanted to spend the night in Seward instead, but was unable to cancel the Cooper Landing reservation at the Drifter's Lodge. In the end, though, it was so pretty there, we were glad we came there.

Eric took this picture of our cabin. Only one room was ours.


Eric took a nice flower picture.


This is the deck of the cabin, overlooking the Kenai River.


The view from behind the cabin. It's beautiful even in a drizzle.


Our host, Bob, lit a fire so that guests could enjoy the area in the back. Photo by Eric.


Our room could fit a lot of people! The Drifter's Lodge also had brownies on our arrival, breakfast in the morning, and a sauna.


The main attraction in this area is salmon fishing, as shown in this Fisherman's Map photo by Eric. I had expected a different, rougher, kind of culture here, but instead found the place comfortable and relaxing. I wished we'd had time for a fishing trip.


There are not a lot of restaurant choices in Cooper Landing. We had dinner at the Kingfisher Roadhouse, which had great food, great views, and slow service. We had roasted chicken and pot pie, which may have been why the food took so long to come. I took a picture of the view out the window.


Eric took a picture of me in the restaurant.


We got up at 5:30 so we would have plenty of time to get to the airport. I had a conversation about local businesses with Hannah, who served us breakfast in the morning. She told me that the oldest business in the area, Gwin's Lodge, had gone out of business earlier in the year. I had positively loved Gwin's Lodge's ridiculously outlandish web site and had wanted to stay there, but turned to the Drifter's Lodge when I couldn't get anyone from Gwin's Lodge to return my calls. Now I found out why. Apparently, the owner died a couple of years ago, and the property was split into several interests, belonging to his children, widow, and parents. As a result, it began to go into decline. Then the septic system failed, and apparently they couldn't pay for both the mortgage and replacement of the septic system, and the bank foreclosed on the property. What a sad story! When I wasn't using our travel agent's choices, I tried to pick tours and lodging on the basis of having the most homemade-looking, unprofessional websites. This methodology served me very well with Kennicott Wilderness Guides, the Old Town Bed & Breakfast, and the Drifter's Lodge. But the unprofessionalism of Gwin's Lodge's web site beat them all, and I wished we could have seen the place. I was very glad, though, that we were able to experience the lovely atmosphere of the Drifter's Lodge.

In the morning, we found out how lucky we'd been with the weather so far. We packed the car in the rain. We were doing well for time, so we stopped to find a cache at Bird Point, an overlook on the Turnagain Arm. It was so cold, I hardly wanted to be out of the car, even in my winter parka!

One last Alaska moment.


And, for some extra added enjoyment, a few aerial photos of the Pacific Northwest from the trip home.

Eric took a picture of Lopez Island in the American San Juan Islands, a beautiful place we visited last year.


The lovely Puget Sound.


Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens together. I'll give you one guess which is which.


I can see my office from here!


As painful as it was to leave the excitement and wonder of Alaska, we do live in a beautiful place, too. And we missed our cats and our comfortable mattress. Hope you enjoyed reading about our amazing Alaskan adventures!

Last updated: 08/04/2011 by Eric and Beth Zuckerman