During our visit to Homer, Alaska at the end of August 2011, we had a few unplanned days. We initially thought maybe we'd just take the ferry over to check out Halibut Cove, but after doing a little more research, we decided to take a ferry over to do the Grewingk Glacier hike instead.
It was a clear morning, and a short ride over to the trail head across Kachemak Bay, and before knew it, we were getting off the little ferry shuttle and taking in views like this:
And the NEXT thing we knew, the ferry was gone, and we were there. Alone. And there were signs about how to handle bears and wild animals - YIKES!
The walk was out of this world! It was so peaceful and quiet and serene. We did see the occasional trace of fresh bear droppings (okay, it was all over the trail), which instilled a bit of the fear of God in us - especially with no weapons to defend ourselves, and (stupidly) no mace.
The hike, although very easy hiking for the most part, seemed to take a lot longer than it should for only 1.8 miles, but before long we saw the sign pointing us toward the glacier, and we finally saw the first other hikers we had seen on the hike, which made us feel a little less alone and lost in the woods.
It wasn't too much longer before we finally got our first view of the glacier. Breathtaking!
It was such a surreal moment for us being all alone in the wilderness. Incredible, really!
Of course, the part that I failed to mention until now about this trip (for those who haven't followed too closely) is that this was our "babymoon" of sorts, and here I was 17 weeks pregnant with our son!
It was really cool to see the big chunks of glacier ice floating in the secluded lake!
It was COLD down by the water there, but we were able to stay warm enough :) Mark enjoyed skipping rocks for a while.
We even got to pick up some big chunks of glacier ice - SO cool!
After a short visit at the glacier, we knew we had to keep moving, as our ferry pickup was in just a couple hours, and we didn't know how long the rest of the hike would take us. (The full hike round-trip took just about 4 hours)
It's a good thing we got started when we did, because while the walk in to the glacier took just a very little time, the hike out to Halibut Cove was exhausting with lots of hills and obstacles.
It seemed like we had been hiking forever when we finally spotted this sign!!
We were thrilled to finally be at the brink of Halibut Cove and so close to the trail head. However, we still had our work cut out for us, since it was all downhill zig-zagging all the way down to the water level.
We finally did make it down to the landing, though, and thoroughly enjoyed the absolutely incredible views once we finally got to sit down and take it all in:
We were completely exhausted by the end of the day, and were so grateful for the hot tub and some Fat Olive's pizza (YUM!!) that evening before an early bedtime to rest our sore bodies.
It was an experience that absolutely will be hard to top in our lives. Hiking to a secluded lake made from glaciers in the wilderness in Alaska while 17 weeks pregnant? Yep - I did that!
