Days 34 (Aug 1) and 35 (Aug 2) were devoted to activities in and around Seward AK.

Saturday was a free day as far as the caravan schedule was concerned. So…we ran down the road a bit and checked out Lowell Creek Falls about a half mile from the campground and also the seaside community another 3 miles down the dirt road. We saw lots of what looked like permanent tents down there and thought we heard banjos so didn’t spend a lot of time…we figured that living in a tent in Alaska was a little hard core. After that we got a few groceries from the Safeway here in town and then had dinner with Bill and Linda…she made steaks and crab stuffed mushrooms and Turtle Brownies for dessert and Neil brought over some rosemary baked tater wedges. Had that and a great dinner was had by all.

Bill and Linda wandered down to the campfire afterwards but Neil had promised Connie a night out at the pub so we headed down to the Yukon Bar…met a nice guy named Chris and chatted with him for awhile. There was a wedding across the street in the park and the groom and some friends wandered in for some booze as there was only beer at the reception…they had a Jaeger bomb and left. Shortly afterward the bridesmaids showed up and had 2 Jaeger bombs each then left…returning in a few minutes with even more wimmen and they had some more bombs. We left the Yukon and went over to the Seward Ale House and met another town drunk…although he really didn’t accost Connie much so we decided not to update the Town Drunk Counter.

Sunday we went over to Mass early then headed over to the Seward Museum for the tour…turns out that the volunteer went fishin or something and it was closed so we headed up to our second activity for the day…a visit to the Exit Glacier about 15 miles north and east of Seward. Exit is an alpine glacier meaning that it just melts and runs downhill via streams/rivers and does not directly touch the ocean. We went on about a 2.5 mile hike with 230 feet of elevation gain up and down to the edge of the glacier…got some nice pics and had a nice walk. After that we came home and Neil grilled some chicken…Linda brought over a Caeser salad and we had rice pudding with dates, raisins, and caramel for dessert.

On to the photos.

A couple of shots of Lowell Creek Falls…notice the nice rainbow in both of these…the sun was in just the right angle to give a nice refraction. The falls is about 35 feet tall and flowing pretty well with glacier water full of what they call stone flour up here…makes the water milky and the dust is as fine as flour you would bake with.

Stuffed Bald Eagle and Brown Bear at the Seward Visitor Center…this bear is a little bigger than the one that walked 10 feet from Neil the other day but not much.

A cruise liner tied up at the dock in Seward…about a quarter mile north of the campground.

The view in back of the RV park…our caravan leader David Baxley’s rig is the one in the center and our house is about 7 or 8 sites down from his just past the red truck.

The 3,200 peak behind the park…you can just see the right hand side of the peak in the shot above. There’s an annual foot race up and down this mountain…6 miles total and 3,200 feet up and then down…the winner this year a couple months back finished the course in 41 minutes. Our friend Mike found another hiker in the park and they hiked up the peak this morning…the path starts behind the campground and goes over t the left side of the peak than up along the treelike then up the gray path on the right side then back to the left to the peak. You can just see Mike and his friend in the second photo which is a closeup of the tree line section…notice the white sandy section in both photos. In the second one…look down the tree line from the sandy spot and just below the tree line a little to the left of center you’ll see two little white dots…one is Mike’s lime green shirt and the other is his friend’s shirt.

The Exit Glacier from about a half mile away…about 1/3 the way up through the hike. It leads back a few miles before merging into the Harding Ice Field.

A closer view of Exit from the next to last viewpoint.

This is as close as you can get to the glacier itself…about 100 yards away but it’s down in the valley a bit and the ground is unstable. The shadowed portion right of center is about 60 or 80 feet thick.

Standing in front of the glacier…we were amazed that it wasn’t cold as it usually is when you’re near a glacier. About mid 70s overall today and only 10 degrees or so cooler with a nice breeze (rather than the gale you usually get off the glacier) despite being pretty close to it.

The outwash plain…this photo is rotated about 90 degrees to the left from looking directly at the toe of the glacier…it’s where the glacier used to be before it retreated over the past 100 years.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow we’re off early for Palmer AK via Anchorage AK where we’ll stay for 2 nights before moving on to Valdez AK. 

Cyas.