Marc's Public Blog - Trips to other locations

We arrived at the end of day #8, and given that the next day was forecast to have monsoon weather, we went to Exit Glacier the day before as sunlight was fading. We only had the time to do the short hike to where the glacier used to be in 2010, and sure isn't anymore:

it's visible from the road already

the nature center had already closed for the season

the placards outside were enough

As usual, it's sobering to see how far the glacier has receeded:

note how all the vegetation has grown where the glacier used to be

Eventually, we got there:

the glacier looks close, but it was still a 15mn hike away on an unofficial trail

After a somewhat tricky hike past the do not cross line, I got to the foot of the glacier:

I got to peek under the glacier in a spot that may not have been super safe, so I didn't stay too long

The next day, due to the pouring rain, we just went to the town's visitor center:

pigeon duck, what kind of forbidden sex was this?

We spent the rest of the very rainy day at the Alaska Sealife Center on its own page:

The next day, the weather had cleared, so we went to the havbour for our cruise:

We had a look at the train that slowly links seward and anchorage:

some fake carriages with businesses

We then boarded our boat for our tour:

this was used to load coal on boats

After a long boat trip that made a fair amount of people sick, we got to Aialik Glacier:

lots of seals resting on the ice, but sadly a bit out of range of my 20x zoom

the crew then made us margaritas using the glacier ice

We got lucky to find some orcas on the trip back:

We also found some seals on a closer rock, as well as some far away bald eagles:

sadly, I also needed a bigger zoom

and a rainbow on the way home for good measure :)

Despite the boat sickness, it was a nice boat trip, even if the one from Whittier the next day was going to beat it easily. And that as it for our time in Seward. We missed out on the long hike to the top of exit glacier, but still had a good time there.