Exit Glacier Hike

Check out the Harding Icefield

The day after silently gliding down Exit Glacier from the Harding Icefield in my Cessna 182 with the power off, we hiked up the same glacier from the bottom. It’s not an easy hike at 8.5 miles and 3,000 feet of elevation gain, but worth it! There are a lot of icefields (where glaciers are born) in Alaska, but not many as accessible as this one.

From the top you can peer out over the Harding Icefield, an incredible sight! We’ve seen tour planes (a Cessna 206 on skis) land on the snow field. They land, get out and walk around for a few minutes, then get back into the plane and head back down the glacier. We also saw a guy pulling a sled walking out across the snowfield. Wow, tough dude (or lady). It’s about 100 miles long and I think every day you see the same thing. Which isn’t very exciting.

Watch for bears! A few weeks after we did this hike a couple of people were attacked by a grizzly bear on the lower section of this trail. They survived and drove themselves to the emergency room. I’m not sure we all had bear spray – but we should.