Hard Hike to the Harding Icefields

Before we left Anchorage we went on a mini shopping spree for souvenirs, led by me rather than Katie. We first filled up on some excellent Thai food downtown then headed to the shops. After a couple of hours I was finally ready to move on to Seward. As we drove down the Turnagain Arm, it was high tide again and we spotted

some more Beluga whales. We watched them for a bit and then headed on down the road. We got to Seward and met Dave at his place, which as enormous! We situated our room for the evening then headed back to Thorn's Showcase Lounge for another round

of their famous halibut. When we got back to Dave's we sat around talking for a bit, sharing tales of our Alaskan journey, then we popped in Fargo and enjoyed a relaxing evening. The next day Katie and I had decided to go back to Kenai Fjords National Park and do the Harding Icefield hike. This hike had come highly recommended by not only Dave, but virtually every person that we had met in Seward. The hike was 8.4 miles round trip and basically starts at the toe of Exit Glacier and hikes to the top of it for a view of the icefields that produced it. Unlike most of our hikes, this hike went straight up hill for 4

miles with no break in the elevation. A sign we read at the trail head said that there is about a 1000 ft. gain every mile during this strenuous hike. We began the hike with high spirits, being well rested from our stay in Anchorage, and excited to get back on a trail. The climb ended up being pretty tough. It offered amazing panoramic views as well as beautiful shots of waterfalls and Exit Glacier as we climbed, but the mountain almost proved to much for Katie. After about half way up, Katie began to stop more and more frequently. Not

that I wasn't happy for the breaks, but Katie needed them. I was dripping sweat, soaking my entire shirt. I had changed in the parking lot to long sleeves and long pants. I figured that the wind

coming off of the icefields would be so cold that I would need the protection. In the end, I was right, but for the time being it was killing me. We continued to climb and took a break for some granola bars at the bottom of a cliff that we were about to climb. Once we got to the top of that, we only had a mile to go, but this mile would prove the hardest. After many stops, we made it, and were rewarded

with an amazing view that few people ever get to experience. It was especially intriguing to look into the valley we

just climbed out of and imagine that it was once filled to the top with solid ice, as the valley before currently was. We stayed for about 10 minutes on the edge, made a small pyramid of stone, and then began to make our decent. We passed an emergency outpost that was nothing but a small empty

cabin apparently used to shelter yourself in the event you get caught by a storm on the mountain. We carved our initials and the date on the inside, just as countless others had done before us, and then continued on. A little down the path we spotted some mountain goats up on the ridge line. We also passed

some salmon berry bushes that had a few ripe berries on them. We didn't know what they were at the time, but I took the risk and ended up eating a few. They tasked sweet enough, had lots of seeds, and a bitter taste at the end. Apparently, bears love them and after about 5 more minutes of hiking we hiked up on one, not 10 ft from the trail. We heard him before we saw him, moving around trying to climb the mountain

amongst the bushes. We stopped for a minute and listened when Katie spotted him fully stretched out reaching up the cliff face. We watched him for a minute, warned a fellow hiker, and then continued on. We laughed a little inside when we got down the mountain a ways and looked back to see a line of 10 people all stopped where we had seen the bear trying to catch a glimpse. We talked to them at the bottom and found out they never got a good look, just the bushes rumbling. At the bottom, Katie went to the ranger station to inquire about some of the things we had seen on our hike, the berries I ate among them. Afterwards we headed back to town and stopped at the Resurrection Roadhouse where we sat out on the deck and shared some excellent pizza. We went back to Dave's house to warm up a bit. He ended up calling us about an hour later and told us that he was meeting some friends at the Yukon Bar for karaoke night. We made the short walk into town and met everyone up at the bar. It was a real small place and definitely full of locals, it seemed like everyone knew everyone and Dave admitted that he pretty much did, except for the few tourists hanging around. He also told us how he had listened to the same people sing the same songs every single karaoke night. We still had a great time and ended up staying out for a while after Dave left with some people we met from Kentucky who were doing the same thing we were, just hitting the road. We changed locations and went a few doors down to the Seward Alehouse where we could hear each other talk. After sharing some stories of our travels, Katie and I headed back to Dave's for the night. We woke up this morning and after packing and taking potentially our last shower for a long time, we went to breakfast at the Train Wreck Smoke Shack where we shared a table with 2 people who worked the bar car on the trains, since there was only 7 tables in the whole place (an old train car). They told us tales about their work as we shared our adventure. It was an amazing chance encounter and made our meal pass by rather quickly. Afterwards we went back downtown to a little cafe called The Sea Bean in order to finish getting up to date with the blog. While we were sitting here a bird flew into the window. It struggled for a bit but just flew away minutes ago. It was crazy to watch it all unfold before our eyes... Now that we're finally caught up with it, we are heading back to Anchorage and possibly further tonight. We have resolved to both drive down the coast via the Cassiar Highway and also visit Dawson City, an old west mining town that apparently offers up a shot with a mummified toe plopped into it. Katie has said that she will do the shot if we make it all the way up there, but we'll see when the time comes. We are traveling through the Yukon again and will be out of touch for a while now, but hopefully we will have plenty more stories to share once we get back into civilization.