The Harding Icefield Trail





Today, we shuttled to Kenai Fjords National Park to embark on our most ambitious hike yet - the Harding Icefield Trail.. 



With an average of 1,000 feet of elevation gain per mile, we knew we were in for a day with lots of switchbacks! For me, there is definitely a mental piece to tackling a challenging hike, but it helped that the last several days had gone well. 



As we climbed up the switchbacks, the views were so beautiful complete with a wide variety of meadow flowers. 





Here, we starting getting a first glimpse of Exit Glacier which comes out of Harding Icefield. Harding Icefield is an expansive icefield located in the Kenai Mountains. It was named for President Warren G. Harding. 

We learned about the difference between an icefield and a glacier. An icefield is a large area of interconnected glaciers in a mountainous region while a glacier is a single flowing mass of ice. Our leaders said you tell the difference by the colors - the icefield is white and the glacier has a bluish tint. 



When we got to the first overlook stop at Marmot Meadows, our leader, Lauren, had prepared fresh berries and chocolate for a snack.









Here you can see the white icefield with the "blue" glacier flowing out of it. 







The next part of the hike was another steep climb up to The Top of the Cliffs, a great place to stop for lunch as we had a wonderful view of the icefield and Exit Glacier. 



While we were there, we saw a bear down on the edge of the glacier (photo was taken by someone else). We were all excited to have a second bear sighting, especially since he was a good distance away :-)



We spent some time just taking in all the beauty. I feel so thankful I've had a chance to see these glaciers as they are rapidly shrinking every year. 



We then began our descent down which our lungs like better, but sometimes our knees do not ;-).
 


The lupine flowers were so beautiful.









We made it down just fine - I'm excited to take a shower and put my feet up for awhile before we have another delicious dinner featuring local Alaskan fare. 

Comments

  1. Marsha SJuly 25, 2025 at 10:10 AM

    So great you can see lupine, the summer must be shorter there. The hike seemed to offer so much beauty that the effort was well rewarded.

    ReplyDelete

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