Anniversary Weekend, day 1: Exit Glacier

On May 20th last month, Heather and I celebrated 5 years of marriage and 10.5 years and two days of a relationship!

To celebrate, we traveled the two and half hours beautiful road trip down to Seward, AK on Memorial Day weekend. Seward is a port town, population ~3,000 during the off season, which resides at the tip of Resurrection Bay next to the Kenai Fjords National Park.

We drove down Friday morning, and the weather was perfect. 65-70 degrees, sunny, no humidity, clear skies...this is why we moved to Alaska!

A view we took in on the drive to Seward

We had reserved a quaint little bed and breakfast to stay a few nights in. It was on Old Exit Glacier road, about 9 miles away from the famous Exit Glacier.

Our cozy little B&B

Our plan for that day had been to visit the Seward Sea Life Center for a tour; however, the weather was so beautiful we decided to change the plans. So, we strapped on our helmets and mounted our brand new bikes and started down the road toward Exit Glacier.

I must admit, it was a tough journey to the glacier. We're not big bike riders, so our butts were sore after only 2 or 3 miles, our legs were burning, but we loved every minute of it. The scenery along that road is gorgeous. It follows a river that's coming from the glacier and along a mountain range. Beautiful!

She-Heather riding next to the river. 

There were all these little pull-offs to stop and snap a photo.

When we got to Exit Glacier park, it was still a mile walk/hike up to the glacier. Even though our legs were already tired we took the longer route (about a 1.5 miles) to take in the sites and enjoy the day and place.

Massive Glacier

At the top, Exit Glacier is connected to Harding Ice Field, a vast expanse of compacted ice over 600 square miles in area. Some time ago, a group of people decided to trek across Harding Ice Field and be the first to do so. Starting from near Homer, AK they hiked up a mounted and entered the frozen plains. After traveling on skis for 8 days, the group of journeymen  reached the other side and exited the ice field on a glacier just north of a little town named Seward. That glacier has since been known as Exit Glacier.

At the monster's edge

After about an hour and a half walking around the area and viewing this silent creeping ice monster, tt was getting late in the day, and it was getting dark less light. We once again mounted our bikes for the return 9 mile journey.

View of the glacier over my shoulder from about a mile away

Come to find out, the road is very slightly inclined, making the return journey much easier as we were able to coast much more. But, somehow we hadn't really noticed this on the way there. We just struggled and pedaled and sweat lots.

It was a gorgeous, beautiful and perfect day. We exercised, we marveled at the awesomeness of nature, the struggled pedaling together and laughed together all day long. 

Happy Anniversary to us!