Alaska Trip - Hitting The Trail

One thing about Alaska is there are lots of glaciers.  Here in Utah, there are many places to see the evidence of glaciers, but in Alaska, you can actually see them in existence.  Exit Glacier is part of the Harding Ice Field located in Kenai Fjords National Park.  The amazing part of Exit Glacier is to see how much it has retreated over the years.  Global warming?  Hmm...Considering we know this glacier has been retreating since at least 1815?  

 You can see how blue the ice looks - it's from snow falling on the glacier and compressing into the glacier; it becomes dense and looks blue

We got some huge artic blasts of wind while we were at the base of the glacier!

We had plans of hiking with Riley up to the top or at least as far as we could get Riley to go, but it was really windy and cold and the flies were CRAZY bad.  No lie while we were walking through the woods to get to the glacier, I'd see 7-8 on my mom's back at the same time as she hiked in front of me!  We didn't think we'd be happy hiking in those conditions.

 Mom and Dad went with us to see the glacier.  They hiked to the top with Matt and Mere years ago and on their adventure came across a momma bear and her cubs - another reason not to take Riley with us to the top.

Part of the glacier melting

Doesn't the blue ice look incredible?

Looking up along the edge of the glacier

Looking down to where the water was forming a glacier stream which then flows out into Resurrection Bay

Looking in the opposite direction of the glacier.  Beautiful views in every direction!

So since we didn't take Riley hiking at Exit Glacier, we thought we'd try to hike at least part of the Mt. Marathon trail.  There is this huge race there every year on the 4th of July to the top of the mt. and back.  I think the race record is to the top and back in a little over 40 minutes.  The total elevation to the top of the mt. is 3022 feet.  The race distance is a 5K total.  The start/finish line is pretty close to their coffee shop so they do lots of business on that day!  It's a pretty big deal up there (my guess it's not nearly as tough as some of the crazy "ultra marathons" like the Speedgoat 50K they run at Snowbird 11,00 feet!) but draws lots of runners and from what I understand it's not easy to even enter the race.  We started to hike back to the trail, but somehow we missed it - it's not an official hiking trail that's marked, etc. so maybe that's why.  Anyhow, Riley had more fun walking along the boulders and rocks that lined the Lowell creek through Lowell Canyon.  We hiked back that instead.  He was really in need of some exercise and some extra attention from mom and dad.

My little guy is so handsome!

Isn't this canyon beautiful?  Reminded me a lot of the canyons here in Utah.

He can be very photogenic when he wants to be

 This is the wild fireweed that you can find throughout the area

Our hike back along the creek

 We decided to take a turn and head up a wash to a waterfall that caught our attention.  Riley wasn't too sure about it once we started our ascent, but he enjoyed it once we were finished crossing the water (the rocks were very slippery)

Doesn't this look like fun?

Thankfully Dad blazed the trail and helped little man across the wet rocks

It was steeper than it looks in this picture

Climbing higher...

Still going...

Hi Mom!

Can't go any higher

Me and my boy

 Looking back down through the canyon towards the bay

After our hike we were all happier.  Riley got to spend some QT with mom and dad and we all got some exercise.  Kendall was happy because she convinced Nanny to take a nap with her!