Top Travel Memories : Hiking to see Grewingk Glacier

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!

Alaska: Seward (Days 5-9)

Overview

Click on a link to jump to that section

Day 5 (Aug 31): Arrived, Alaska SeaLife Center, scenic walk through town
Day 6 (Sep 1): Kenai Fjords Wildlife Cruise, Chinook's
Day 7 (Sep 2): Exit Glacier, Christo's Palace
Day 8 (Sep 3): Hike up Mount Marathon, Railway Cantina

Day 5: Arriving, Alaska SeaLife Center, Relaxing, Long Walk to town

We arrived in Seward around 3pm after a long drive from Homer. We settled into our hotel for a couple hours, then decided to find something to do on the gloomy day.

Alaska SeaLife Center

We settled on going over to the Alaska SeaLife Center for a couple hours. It was too bad it was so gloomy, but we were alright with it, so long as the next day was beautiful for our wildlife cruise (and it was!)

It was still very foggy and depressing outside when we stepped out on the observation deck.

After the SeaLife Center, we walked back down the street to our hotel.

We decided that after the massive amounts of food we ate earlier, we weren't really too terribly hungry, so we enjoyed some soup and sandwiches for supper in our room this night, followed by a nice, long walk, as the weather had finally cleared up!

Little did we know, we'd be hiking up this mountain in a couple days: Mt. Marathon!


We got to see this cool big barge come into port. It only got so far, and then it had to have a little tugboat come on out to assist it in.

We made it to bed fairly early so we could get some rest before our big wildlife cruise in the morning.

Day 6: Kenai Fjords Wildlife Cruise, Chinook's

The first full morning in Seward, we were up early for breakfast, then rested back in the room for a while.

We headed down to the dock around 10:30am to check in for our wildlife cruise.

Kenai Fjords Wildlife Cruise

Our cruise left at 11:30am and returned back home around 5:30pm. It was a long day full of lots of incredible scenery and wildlife!

Before long, we spotted our first whale!

And then another!!




And then there was an even closer humpback!!







We also got to see lots of these cute little Puffins! They were tough to catch staying still, but this little guy wasn't going far :)

And then was an even CLOSER Humpback whale encounter!

And if it couldn't be any closer, yeah, it was!


Before we knew it, we were looking at glaciers as well!


We found a nice chunk of glacier ice covered with seagulls.

I think the most impressive glacier we saw our entire trip was this particular one: the Aialik Glacier!

To give you some perspective, our boat was the same size as this one here, and we were probably 3 miles away from the other ship. It held at least 120 people, so use your imagination.


It was ENORMOUS! And it was in the process of calving, so we saw lots of glacier ice in the water. Can't imagine how cold that must have been!

We saw this little black bear way off in the distance:

And then some cool harbor seals on the rocks:

And these cool killer whales while making our way back to the port!


We had a wonderful time on the cruise and saw a ton of wildlife!

After the wildlife cruise, we did a little shopping, then headed on over to Chinook's for dinner, as we had heard wonderful things about the place.

Dinner at Chinooks

We enjoyed our meal at Chinook's, although we didn't feel the food was worth the hefty price tag. The view, however, was wonderful!

Mark ordered the Alaskan King Crab, which he said was delicious!

I had the salmon, which was good, but not the best I've ever had.

Day 7: Exit Glacier, Christo's Palace

We woke to another gloomy day in Seward, so we slept in a bit, enjoyed some breakfast in the lounge and then putzed around in our room, watching TV and catching up on posting pictures from Homer.

Exit Glacier

Around 10am, we packed a lunch, then headed for Exit Glacier and hiked the Exit Glacier Trail to get a great view of the glacier!

It was a little hike to get up near the glacier, but it was pretty easy.





We happened to run into some sweet ladies we met the previous day on the wildlife cruise along the trail and swapped pics with them :)




It was so cool to see the brilliant turquoise ice through the cracks. Apparently the ice is so compacted that the only light that reflects is this turquoise color.

After our hike, we had lunch in the car, as we were famished, then drive back to the hotel to rest a bit more.

Christo's Palace

We ventured back out around 7pm for dinner at Christo's Palace. Our lady friends had recommended the pizza there and said we just HAD to try it out. It definitely was yummy, but still didn't compare to Fat Olive's in Homer.

After dinner, with it being so dreary, rainy and cold, we called it a night and went back to the hotel to wind down from the day.

Day 8: Mt. Marathon Hike, Railway Cantina

On our last full day in Seward, we slept in a bit again, had breakfast in the lobby, then lounged around until lunch time, where we had soup and sandwiches in our room. We wanted to be well-rested for our hike up Mount Marathon.

Mount Marathon

Shortly after noon, we drove to the base of Mount Marathon, parked the car alongside the road, then took off for the hike! We weren't anticipating much, but this was a pretty intense hike for us! The inclines were about 30-35 degrees, and we were very winded by the time we got to the 4th incline and had to stop a minute to catch our breath!

After hiking a while, we heard water, so we followed the signs to this cool waterfall :)


It was a pretty dreary day, but we were glad the ground was just wet, not overly muddy, and that it wasn't still raining!

We continued to follow the signs for a waterfall instead of the race route and came upon this waterfall, which was just further up the mountain than the one we found previously.

And then, out of the blue, we turned around and saw this incredible view!


We reached this trail marker and were getting really exhausted, so we putzed around and took some pictures of the gorgeous view!




We used the trail post as our resting place with it being so muddy :)



We were ready to turn around and head back down the mountain at this point, but we ran into a guy who told us that we really needed to go just a little bit further up this hill, so after a short break, we continued on our trek.



We were glad we had taken the guy's advice, because not far up the mountain, we came across an even nicer view:


After a short while of walking and visiting with our trail buddies, and them being much more experienced (and much less pregnant), they went on ahead of us.

We took our time and were on the lookout for moose, which the one guy said he had seen in the area a couple days prior.


We finally got out of all the trees and into the brush and decided to take a bit of a break.


We saw lots of moose tracks and poo...


...and even a spot where we could tell a moose had been laying at one point!

But we found no moose :(

However, in our search of a moose and traipsing through the brush, we came to a clearing where we got this insane view of Seward!

While we were tempted to continue on, this lady was getting pretty worn down, not to mention we were ill-prepared with water and food and needed to use the restroom, so we decided to head back down the mountain after reaching the clearing.

Getting back down the mountain was a lot easier than climbing up it, but hard on the knees. After our hike, we decided to rest back at the hotel for a while before finding dinner.

We had initially intended to take a drive and go a little further down the southern coast, but we made it all of about .1 miles out of town to find it was a gravel road, and well...our car rental agreement we signed said it was a $250 fine for driving on gravel. Instead, we decided to head back out on the road to Exit Glacier to see if we could find any signs of wildlife along the river with no luck, so we headed back into town to find dinner.

Railway Cantina

We decided to try out a little Alaska tex-mex at the Railway Cantina at the suggestion of our friend, Mel, who lived in Seward for a summer.

We grabbed a couple burritos and found a window seat to people watch:

Mark had the blackened chicken burrito with mild salsa:

I had the halibut burrito with pineapple salsa:

They were both delicious, but we're definitely spoiled with Chipotle and Qdoba back here in the midwest, so not quite as good.

And thus, we finished our last meal, and last evening in Seward.

We sure did enjoy our stay in Seward, even if it was rainy and gloomy all but the day we did our Kenai Fjords wildlife cruise. We'd probably do the same agenda if we had it to do all over again, and we enjoyed our accommodations just fine, even though they were nothing spectacular. It'd be fun to stay in one of the B&Bs overlooking the bay up on the cliff, or maybe nestled in a cabin somewhere amidst the wildlife. Seward is a fun little city, and I'd highly recommend going back! Hopefully you get better weather while you're there :)