4 August 2010 - Seward AK

Day 43

It rained and rained and rained, but that did not stop us from doing anything. This morning we visited the Alaska Sealife Center in downtown Seward. It is an amazing museum and research facility. It was still raining when we came out, so we went for lunch, Sharon craved pizza, so off we went searching for and found a pizzeria.

It was still raining; but, that was not going to stop us from going up to Exit Glacier. We drove up to the visitor center, parked and hiked up to the Glacier. This was significant for two reasons: 1) We got into a National Park without having to pay any fees, and 2) I now have scratched an item off my bucket list.

Getting close and personal with a glacier is exciting. The air was a lot warmer than I would have expect; the view was spectacular. Carole and Marcel had been here 4 years ago, the glacier (a thumb glacier, as opposed to one that calves at the end) had retreated well over 400 yards, and the river was much bigger. The river was probably only bigger because of the weeks and weeks of constant rain that has been falling here all summer. The rain finally stopped and visibility improved and we got a lot of good pictures. On the way down we hiked by the outwash plain; Marcel and I actually picked ice chunks out of the river. Then against Sharon's better judgement we hiked down the outwash instead of going back the way we came, and came to a steam that could not be jumped; long story short, Carole has a picture of Terry with a soaker and a wet arm and a soggy knee....