A Day of - - OOO, Change of Plans - - a Glacier: The Estate Takes on Alaska

Copyright 2019, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

July 15, 2019

IT’S RAINING!!  And, we are laying around doing - - nothing.   The rain was so hard and storm so present ,that for much of the morning all we could see was a wall of fog and mist. That said, BRING ON MORE RAIN!  Who would have ever thought I would say such a thing??  The wet weather over the last few days has cut the smoke down tremendously and has helped diminish some of the fires.  Tis a good thing.

 It’s cool too, barely in the 50’s.  

By noon, the mist/clouds have lifted and I can see the mountains in front or me once again.

We are contemplating driving to town and going to the area where the cruise ships come in.  I’m not so much for knick knack tourist shopping, but, do need some walking/exercise.  There is a museum and the Visitor’s Center for Kenai Fjords National Park.  The only road that allows accessibility to the park goes right past the park.

And, let’s see what this day presents.

CHANGE of PLANS, just as we were pulling out of the campground Man suggest we try to get to Exit Glacier and find a parking spot. They usually tell you to try any time BUT midday.  What with the rain and such, we thought, drive up, check it out, if no parking, revert to the plan to go to town. 

We arrived, 6 RV parking spots. Make that five RV parking spots. We took the 6th.

We had some lunch. 

Grabbed our hiking poles, camera, several layers of sweaters and rain coats.  As we approached the signage describing the trails, we encountered a hike led by a volunteer, and we sorta just merged in.  We stayed with the group for about half and then took off on our own.  

There are signs along the drive in and all the way to the edge of the glacier, they are year signs, indicating what they know to be the edge of the glacier in what year.  The earlier years, all the way back to 1815 were determined by a clever set of facts, piles of glacier dirt and rings of trees (if I understood it correctly.) We did not hike far enough, but, I have seen a photo of another visitor who found a sign dated 2005, and he included the glacier today in his photo.  It is very alarming.  It won't be long these glaciers will be gone unless something drastic happens.

This is Resurrection River, flowing from the Exit Glacier, very heavy in glacier silt.

The docent leading the tour explained how fireweed is one of the first plants to grow after some disaster or clearing of the land.  Here is a fine specimen right near the edge of the water.  I would guess if there is flooding, or has been, this spot would have been under water.

I think this might be my favorite shot of the glacier.  Lot of Sony III zoom.

This shot was taken .5 miles into our hike and in fact, where we turned around due to the rain. I have seen web sites and blogs talking about the Exit Glacier and walking on it.  That is currently not possible, as it is currently considered too dangerous due to falling ice and rock.

Sony III zoom from the same vantage point as the photo above.

As we left the park I stopped at a pull off and shot this, looking back up the Resurrection River towards the glacier.  You cannot see the glacier from here, at least not with the cloud cover.

It rained. We got wet. Not tooooo wet, just wet.  I nearby announce we are certified Alaskan hikers now, got our rain coats wet and hiked a mile in dribbles to harder rain. Yep. We are official now!  

We drove back to town.  man wanted to see the fishing boats come back in.  Me,   LOL,  not so much. 

Man saw boats, you will note in the far distance there is also one cruise ship.

This fellow greeted us, I did not take a seat, although I considered it, just cause he was cute.

No reason to take this, cept, it appealed to my artistic side.

And, I could not resist using Sony's zoom to capture this fine specimen.

You may remember I mentioned seeing a number of water falls, but, not being able to capture them while we drove down here.  I saw this one, while we walked around town, and let me tell you, it was a LONG way away, Sony III and zoom, again.  I'll bet if I had more zoom it would be even better.

Some of you may know how much I love my National Parks, so you know why I took this. And, look at that teal color of the water - - glacier water - -

We found a place that sold pizza.  Build your own. Sooooo good.  Shared a IPA beer and the pizza. Went to the docks. Strolled around some more. Done for the day, we headed home.  

This photo is a bit of a glance into living in 100 square feet with wet rain coats - - hang em in the shower, the drips won't hurt a thing. I also use this rod to hand shirts I don't like to get bone dry in the dryers.  A nice example of mutli-purpose areas here in The Estate.  (I won't share with you the 3rd use, Sir W's pee pad!  LOL)

It was a good day, very satisfying and we got in a lot of steps. 

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