August 8, 2008 Friday
After sleeping a little late we visited the Exit Glacier this morning and hiked to the Harding Ice Fields above the glacier. The weather was perfect today…sparse clouds, bright sunshine and pleasant temperatures. The 4.5 hour hike was to an area “above the cliffs” and was fairly strenuous rising from 550 ft to 2,600 feet in 2.3 miles. I would describe small sections as rock climbing in that you had to use your hands to help pull yourself up. The effort was well spent in that the views of the glacier and ice fields at the top were excellent. My opinion is this is the best hike we've ever done…ever. With all of the side trips we probably hiked 6 or 7 miles today. On our way down we passed hikers who said the park ranger had told them a bear was on the trail. We never saw the bear although its scat was on the trail that was not there on the way up.
After the hike we went back into Seward to take a $2 shower (the best ever-7 minutes of hot water) at the downtown marina and get on the internet (piggyback from Breezes hotel parking lot). Our next stop is Homer, Alaska so we started that way and stopped for the night at the Skilak Lake campground.
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