July 18
I'm sure it will shock no one to hear that we woke up to rain again. Just a very lite rain, enough to be annoying while I did the outside work of packing up the camping, but not enough to really get you wet.
Once we were ready we decided we needed to head up to Exit Glacier again to at least go to the visitors center. The rain had stopped by the time we got there. We all went in and started looking around. They have ranger lead hikes every two hours and one was just about to start. At the very last minute I decided I wanted to go. No one else wanted to join me so I ran back to the camper to put on my hiking shoes, coat and get the camera.
As I got to the camera I saw everyone leaving. I figured if I walked fast I would catch up quickly. Unfortunately another ranger stopped me and wanted me to move my camper. The parking spaces were big enough for RV's but not trucks and trailers so I stuck out a bit. Not a problem but even if the group was walking slow the chances of catching up would be more difficult.
I double timed it hoping to catch up when they stopped to talk about something. I thought I had read they were going up to the glacier view. However, I go to a look out spot and saw them walking in the terminus. So I figured I misread and that's all the farther they were going. I continued up to the top. It was an amazing view. I thought I would be closer to the glacier though. This hike, I thought brought you close to the base. There are other hikes that take you up to the top, although those hikes take upwards of 8 hours and you're pretty much making your own path.
At one point there was an info sign telling about the glacier. It was very interesting to learn that it flows down hill about a foot each day. You could see signs of the shear strength of the ice on the rocks. When I went to school 8th grade science was geology. I don't remember much, but there are a few things rolling around in my head. I don't remember any of the terminology so please do not use what I'm about to write as fact. I'm just trying to describe it in an easy to understand way. I know there are a few teachers reading, and if there are any other science buffs that want to point to some links or tell us the correct terminology, please put it in the comments.
Anyways, similar to wood, rock has a grain so to speak. In fact, that's how you can tell what kind of rock it is. Hit it with a chisel and how it breaks determines what kind of rock. If the grain of the rock is in line with the way the glacier is flowing, you will expose that grain. Very mush like sanding wood in the direction of the grain will tend to make it rough and bumpy. If the grain of the rock is oriented 90 degree's of the flow, it will polish it. I was able to see both kinds of wear on these rocks. It was amazing. The polished rock was not quite as smooth and shiny as rock that came out of a rock polisher, but when I touched it, it was very, very smooth and slick. I placed my foot on a polished rock and but weight on it and due to the rain from earlier it was as slippery as ice.
I started my way back down. I took a trail that would bring me out to the terminus. Terminus is just a fancy word for the area below a glacier. Here I met up with the ranger lead group. I stopped to listen and learned that the mountain to the North was rounded at the top because the glacier was higher than the peak and wore the top off. This was at least 1000 ft about our heads. Probably more as I am a poor judge of distance. The mountain to the South still had its sharp peak, so geologist's know that the glacier did not rise about it.
At this point one of the women in the group had to show us how smart she was by asking which jurassic period the mountains were formed in. While knowledgable, rangers really do not need to know this info, nor does it matter for the purpose of a hike. One of the guys spoke up with what he thought was correct and I wouldn't call it an argument, but it was more than a discussion on who was correct. I'll also note that the hike was only supposed to last 90 minutes and I met them at the 90 minute mark and they still had the rest of the hike to the top lookout, plus come back, I was kind of glad I was not part of that group after all even though I really like to hear the knowledge that the rangers have.
I did walk out onto the terminus, I walked as far up as I was allowed. I thought it was really cool that at the bottom of the glacier was a sot or cave or tunnel and this is where all the water exited.
The girls had went on their own little hike while they waited for me. They had finished and were waiting in the truck for me. Just as we were pulling out it started raining again, much harder than the first time. I was really glad I was not in that group as I would not want to hike down the trail on those slick rocks.
We headed out of Seward towards Palmer. We had to take the same road back that drove along the inlet. I almost turned to go to Whittier. The only way to access Whittier is to drive through a 2 mile long tunnel. It was built and used in WW2. It's very late as I write this and I'm getting too tired to do the research to post but I encourage you to read about it. It's very interesting on an engineering standpoint. In any case, there is only one lane. It was originally built for trains, which it's still used for today. So each side takes turns in 15 minute intervals. Everything I've read has said Whittier is a cute little coastal town. In fact I had considered leaving Kasilof a day or two early just to go to Whittier, although I lost track of my days because I wanted too go fishing every night! I kind of wanted to go through the tunnel just for the experience and the historical significance. But I also knew that everyone wanted to get to the next overnight. It's a lot to ask the girls to sit three across in the back seat. I had also thought about stopping at Girdwood as they have a gondola that takes you to the top of a mountain. Low laying clouds scrapped that idea.
Leaving the inlet and driving into Anchorage you could feel and see a definite weather change. It was still cloudy but it was not as gloomy. The temperature raised about 10 degrees even though we were coming into evening and the humidity left the air.
We did make a pitstop in Anchorage. Before the trip I was flip flopping on getting a Starlink. I had read that cell service was generally good but that there would be days where we would not have service as all. And most campgrounds had wifi, although most places was only good enough for text, email and maybe Facebook.
I figured that was acceptable and we were on vacation to experience things, not sit on our phones the whole time. I would say that worked out very well for the first half of the trip. To date we have only had the tv on twice and both times was when the weather prevented us from doing anything else. The girls have done a lot of texting and facetiming friends. And once I was unable to connect with the satellites for Sirius I streamed it when I had cell service. Wifi in the campgrounds was as expected. Again that was ok, but it would take the entire time we were sleeping to upload photo's for the blog, which was frustrating, especially if we were really busy and I had to do 2-3 days at a time. Also despite having unlimited data, there is a cap. At that point you are throttled quite a bit. We all hit that cap about 5 days ago, which makes even using Google maps impossible. Luckily it resets tonight.
Looking at out schedule, starting tomorrow we will be outside of cell service until the last week of our trip. I struggled a lot with the fact that I'd be spending $500 for the equipment, plus the access charge, for a single month. I'll never really need it again. However, I remembered Destruction Bay. I have not written about that yet, but I had no cell service there and if it wasn't for someone camping in the acidity with Starlink it was have made an already shitty situation even worse.
I decided that the cost was worth it for the remainder of the trip. Home Depot had them in stock at the Anchorage store. I'm hoping that I can sell the equipment when I get home, and it I can't or decide not to, maybe I can rent it out.
So far it has at least saved some aggravation. Heidi needed to check in for her flight home and she had also hit her data cap and fought with the airlines app all day. It took three hours just to download the app, not counting the effort to access her flight info. The campgrounds wifi sucked. I suppose we could have went into town to a Starbucks but we had other things we wanted to do. Also I uploaded a ton of photo's from the whale watching cruise to yesterday's blog entry. That would have been impossible without the Starlink. I think it took about 45 minutes to upload all of those pictures and three video's. So I think it was worth it. Most of our camping for the remainder of the trip is dry which means no power or water, which also means no wifi or cell service unless we go into town.
So, come September, if anyone is going on a trip and needing internet access, hit me up!
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