Seward - Part II -- Kenai Fjords National Park

It seems that every town in Alaska has a brewing company and we have made it a priority to visit as many as we can.  Seward Brewing has a nice selection of brews and Nanc said the halibut salad was the best she has had in Alaska.  Like everything else in town we could walk to it from the campground. The only time we moved the car during our five day stay was to go to Kenai Fjords National Park. The area around Exit Glacier ten miles out of town is the only place in the 669,983 acre park that is accessible by vehicle.

Exit Glacier, like all the glaciers in the park, flows off the Harding Icefield.  They have signs driving into the park to show where the end of the glacier was over the years.  One sign about a mile from the present end was 1951 when Nanc was a year old.  That really puts global warming on a scale that is easy to understand when you see how far it has retreated in her lifetime.  We hiked about half way up the side of the glacier through the woods.

Nanc is ready with the bear spray after we were warned by hikers coming down that there was a black bear in a meadow near the trail.  I let her go first because she is faster than me.

Sure enough, when we crested the hill we saw him.  This is as close to a bear as we want to be when we are hiking.  While attacks are rare they do happen.  It was neat seeing him in a more natural setting than the ones we see along the road.

Looking down on the glacier and all the way to the Resurrection mountains that we can see out of the window of Opus.  The snow capped peaks are beautiful. 

A group of ice climbers testing their skills on the glacier.  When you visit Seward don't miss Exit Glacier.  Even if you are not a hiker you can get a good look at it with just a short one mile walk from the visitor center. 

Seward is a big halibut fishing area and they were having a tournament while we were there.  We saw a lot of fish, but this one was the biggest.  At 250 pounds it was in second place for the week.  The all time record is almost 500 pounds.

You never know what kind of pets you will see on the road.  This is a pet caribou.  If you have been reading the blog you know what a tame caribou is called.  Guess what you call one on a leash.  Answer at the bottom of the page.

A few of the town's murals that celebrate its history.  The sea, the Iditarod Trail, the Mount Marathon Race, native people's creation story and the great flowers, 

I said in the last post that we tried to hike the race path up Mount Marathon.  This is why we turned around and used the easy trail.  It is more of a climb than a hike.

When we got above the tree line we were rewarded with a great view of Resurrection Bay and Mountains with the fog starting to roll in.

Another neat look at the bay and mountains.  We sure were happy the clouds we had the first couple of days cleared out.

We visited the Alaska Sealife Center for an up close look at some of the animals we have seen at a distance in the wild and some we have never seen.  This puffin posed for several pictures.

A male king eider.  We have never seen one of these beautiful birds in the wild.  He was in courting mode following a female and puffing up his chest and feathers.

Something you will never see in the wild that you may see here, a puffin swimming under water.  They are so fast they leave a trail of bubbles behind.

A king crab, squid and starfish in some of the tank displays.

In addition to its resident harbor seals, the center has a rescue and rehab program to save seals and release them back into the wild.

The ocean tank has a big variety of fish.  They have a nice section on the life cycle of salmon, but my pictures were not very good.  If you want an up close look at local sea life, a visit to the center is a must.

Answer:  A pet caribou on a leash is a rein(ed)deer:-)