Dateline Exit Glacier, Seward, AK-Thursday, August 23

Above: 400' thick (above the water) Portage Glacier, viewed from the tour boat

Exit Glacier, Fjords National Park, as we approached after a three mile uphill hike

We spent Wednesday driving south from Denali National Park to Girdwood, just south of Anchorage along the Turnagain Arm. We checked into the Alyeska Mountain Resort, a beautiful ski resort in the Kenai Mountains. After dinner, we turned in early, exhausted from our long drive south and the nonstop activities of the day before.

This morning we visited Portage Glacier, a beautiful glacier that descends into Portage Lake. We took a boat tour of the lake, full of icebergs calved from the glacier. The boat goes right to the base of the glacier, which begins five thousand feet above and terminates four hundred feet below the surface of the lake. Portage Glacier advances about 520 feet each year and is constantly added to each winter at the top. It is another four hundred feet thick above the water where in approaches the lake. In the car on the way back from Portage we spotted a black bear cub up a tree only a few yards from the roadside; we took this as a good omen.

We drove south through the beautiful Kenai Peninsula to Exit Glacier, just outside of Seward, our final land destination before boarding our cruise ship Friday. Exit Glacier is in the Fjord National Park, which encompasses part of the massive Harding Ice Field on the coastal mountain tops of Prince William Sound. We hiked a grueling uphill three miles to the foot of the glacier, where we took a few photos and appreciated the awesome power of nature as displayed in these glaciers.

We checked into quaint Windsong Lodge on the Resurrection River a few miles north of Seward, where we will spend the evening before enjoying a few more activities tomorrow then boarding our cruise ship to head south along the Alaskan Inside Passage.