...Another day, (one last day) without flying...
My wife had finally arrived in Anchorage the night before, and I was glad to see her. In the early discussions of whether to take this trip we'd planned on traveling together for the duration, but I asked her if she really wanted to spend 2+ weeks traveling in the airplane. Between that and a $200 one-way ticket to Anchorage it was an easy choice: Airline it up, travel around for a bit, and fly south in the Mooney together. This plan would prove to work out satisfactorily, though in the end we both wanted more Alaska than time would permit.
We had another day of rental car and weather was forecast to move in that would preclude any flying, so once again I tore down the Seward highway out of Anchorage, this time it was my wife's turn to marvel at the sights as a first-timer. We made our way to Seward, a pleasant town of only 2,600 or so that felt larger, no doubt due to the rail connection, port, and large commercial fishing presence. The small downtown area has some fun touristy diversions, local art, etc.After Seward we left to get up and close to a glacier -- Exit Glacier, a drive-up affair in Kenai Fjords National Park. Along the drive in, road signs are posted with dates (years). The years grow successively larger (more recent) over the last mile or two as you approach the end of the road, and current-day terminus of the glacier... an interesting chronology of its retreat. This was our first experience exploring the terminus of a glacier and doing a bit of up close hiking near the end. One regret was not getting there early enough to take a half-day or so and hike up adjacent Exit Glacier to take a look at the Harding Ice Field above, a climb of a few thousand feet.
One general travel principle I prefer, though not without its stress, is making as few plans in advance as possible. When traveling via single-engine airplane this is usually the case anyway -- one of the more hazardous things a pilot can say is "I will be there tomorrow at 6pm, no matter what". From what I'd read prior to the trip this can be a problem in the North in the higher part of the tourist season - June & July... but approaching late August with school back in session things like rental cars and hotels were generally available the day-of (well, except for Whitehorse a few days ago).
With this in mind, we started thinking about accommodations while visiting the glacier. As I had a few days break from camping and my wife was still fresh we looked for a nearby place to camp, and were not disappointed: Kenai Fjords park has a (free) walk-in campground a couple miles from the terminus of the glacier just off the access road. Normally, I eschew established campgrounds for the proximity they place people in different groups. I'm not anti-social, but prefer a quiet place to sleep, free of hearing tent zippers, people who stay up late, and smoke from campfires. Give me a hundred-yard buffer, at least. This campground, however, was exceptional... elbow room with vegetation between campsites, a great shelter to cook and eat in, and a walk-in food storage area to keep smelly items and food from tempting the local bears.
As we weren't paying for a hotel we enjoyed a great feast at the Exit Glacier Salmon Bake, most of the way down the road to Seward. Any restaurant that deprecates itself with t-shirts that say "Lousy food and cheap beer" is probably going to be really, really good -- and our feast of salmon, halibut, wine, and beer certainly was.
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