7/26: Exit Glacier and a few hours' drive to Homer

Monday July 26 Over to Homer: Leaving Seward, we made a stop at Exit Glacier, the only one in Kenai Fjords National Park that's accessible by car. Yes, it's called Exit, because it's often used as a path to leave the gigantic Harding Ice Field that feeds all of the glaciers in the park. At first, I didn't understand the highway signage announcing an Exit! Trail construction up to the glacier is constant, as the ice melts back 20 or 30 feet per year.

The town of Homer is on the southwest side of the Kenai and gets about ½ the rain of Seward, and so we drove with hope through the rain across the deeply wooded peninsula, along the Kenai river. This river is world famous for the fishing, especially for the world’s largest king salmon. We drove down into Homer just as the rain stopped and the clouds lifted enough to see the glaciated valleys and snowy mountaintops across the Kachemak Bay – a spectacular view of the western extent of Kenai Fjords. Homer is a neat little city and we stayed put for 3 days!