Day 28
7/28/26 Saturday
Mosquito count: just a few…very few
Our highway turnout camping turned out to be pretty quiet. Not a lot of highway traffic even in the early morning. We woke up to a neighbor camping on the turnout as well.
No rush to get to Seward this morning. I think it is about 55 miles over a couple of easy passes. This highway is built for plenty of traffic so there are always two lanes when going uphill. Smart… good job Alaska highways. There is a junction where the highway splits and most of the traffic heads toward Soldotna, Kenai and Homer. It sure was a pretty drive all the way to Seward. Lots of mountains, rivers and lakes. The water is such a pretty blue.
Kenai Lake. Our first stop was to see the Kenai Lake. It’s the beautiful glacier blue color. There’s a nice USFS campground here. We didn’t spend much time here we just wanted to see the lake. We spotted a driftwood stick teepee that someone had built on the shoreline further down the campground.
Trail River. Connects Trail Lake to Kenai Lake.
Kenai Lake: it’s a very big long and deep lake with such a beautiful glacial blue color.
Kenai Fjords National Park.
Exit Glacier trail hike on the Harding Icefield. This is the premier attraction at this park. It’s only a 2 mile trail and the first half is paved. Then it’s a rocky glacial path to a couple of overlooks. It was a busy trail even in the rain. There was another much longer and more difficult trail you could take to the top of the Exit Glacier and see the Harding Ice field.
Exit Creek. Outwash creek from the Exit Glacier. The outwash plain area was huge! The mud on the edge of the creek is called glacial flour. This is the powder of silt and clay. It will suspend in the water and cause the turquoise color.
The turquoise color of the water in the creek they call glacial milk. When it’s this close to the glacier it is often a muddy gray color.
Oh the people you meet…We were vacillating over booking a Glacier Tour Boat tomorrow lasting 7 hours. The weather forecast is dismal. Rain 100% all day. The forecast calls for 4.5” of rain tomorrow. Nonstop…all day too! We came across some locals that we could ask if it’s worth it to go in that kind of weather. They all said NO. You won’t be able to see anything. And you won’t want to stand outside. It will turn out to be an expensive lunch. The best part of meeting this group was that the young man of one couple was wearing a Montana State Bobcat National Champions sweatshirt. (That’s what started the conversation). He met his wife who is from Colstrip at college. They are just moving back to Seward (he grew up there) from Houston. Good move😊
We walked around the downtown of Seward this evening. There were a couple of buildings that caught my eye. Not necessarily for architecture but uniqueness
But… it remains and is possibly inhabited.
Camping tonight on the Resurrection River on a highway turnout. We are not alone. There’s a parade of rv’s and camper buses all in a row. It has enough room for us and maybe a couple more. It seems in Alaska it’s okay to use highway pullouts unless they are marked “No Camping”. The City of Seward has a ton of camping in town right on the waterfront. It’s just parking lot camping…some have full hookups and some just electricity but we didn’t want to pay $40 for dry camping (just parking).
Should we stay or should we go?Honestly we are bummed that the weather has had these huge rainstorms at both of the places we were hoping to take a boat to see the glaciers meet the ocean and whales….Seward and Valdez). It remains to be seen if we will get back to either of these towns. Unless we change our minds in the morning we’re going to keep traveling tomorrow to Homer. It’s on the end of the Kenai Peninsula.
cinnicrew 