Exit Glacier

Our weather for the past couple days has been just gorgeous and it promises to be so again today.  With lots of sunshine, bright blue skies, a slight breeze, and temperatures in the low to mid 60s, we couldn’t ask for more.  Add to the perfect weather good friends to spend the day with at a National Park and you have the essence of “life is good”.

Exit Glacier is a tiny part of Kenai Fjords National Park which encompasses much of the area around Seward.  To get an up close and personal view of the National Park you really need to take one of the wildlife cruises offered by several companies.  Two cruise companies, Major Marine and Kenai Fjords, offer cruises accompanied by a park ranger.  On the Major Marine cruise, a ranger is present for the entire trip.  These cruises are expensive, but are well worth the money, especially if using the two for one coupons in the discount book.  Since we did that on our last trip to Alaska, we’ll pass on that adventure this time.

Exit Glacier is about 6 miles from the waterfront in Seward.  We packed our picnic lunch and spent several hours at the Visitor Center and on the trail leading to the Glacier. Exit Glacier is receding rapidly and now the trail which leads to within a few feet of the glacier is about 1.3 miles in length.  After looking at the displays at the Visitor Center we joined a large group on a Ranger led hike to the edge of the glacier.  The ranger was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the glacier; we really enjoyed her hike.  She is also a former RVer so at the end of our hike we spent several minutes chatting with her about that aspect of her life as well as volunteering at a National Park.

For a little relaxing time before dinner, we arranged our lawn chairs in front of our rigs at the water front.  To our delight, and a little surprisingly, a float plane landed right in front of us.  That was pretty exciting.

Another great view from our rig

This morning holds the promise of another beautiful day.  Gene and I will continue our quest for a few more Christmas gifts and some fresh salmon and halibut for our freezer.    I think Tony and Diana will be taking in the Sealife Center which is excellent and perhaps one of the wildlife cruises this afternoon.

That’s it for now.  Thanks for tagging along.