Exit Glacier and Harding Icefield are both viewable from this trail in Kenai Fjords National Park. Harding Icefield is the largest icefield located entirely within the United States. They are accessed from the Herman Leirer Road (also called Exit Glacier Road) off of the Seward Highway about four miles north of town. The National Park entrance is located about 7 miles back the road. There is a day parking area and a small nature center. The hike to view the Harding Icefield is about 4 miles (oneway) with 3,500 feet elevation gain. For those looking for an easier outing, the Exit Glacier can be viewed from an accessible trail that is about one mile in length. There are also trails to the toe of the glacier and to the edge of the glacier that are shorter and less steep than the Harding Icefield Trail.
The Harding Icefield Trail starts off from the loop nature trail, about 0.4 miles from the nature center. There is a register to sign in at the trail head. You start up the trail, which heads up quickly, on a fairly wide path, but it soon narrows. The vegetation is quite dense along this entire trail. You reach Marmot Meadows at about mile 1.4, the first real break from the dense vegetation. There are numerous steep sections of rocky steps and rock ascending. Some sections have a stream flowing over them and are muddy and/or slippery.
This trail has heavy vegetation throughout
One of the numerous sets of rocky steps
At the trailhead, there was a posted notice of a “defensive black bear mother with cubs” dated 6/15/16. We also had read a tweet about two days earlier that the trail had been closed for several hours while this bear and her cubs were on the trail. About a quarter of a mile up the trail, we ran into our first pile of bear scat. We continued along on extra alert, making noise and with our bear spray handy. One good feature of this trail, in this particular instance, was the volume of other hikers, which was pretty high. A couple who came from the other direction informed us that they had seen a bear “near the bridge” and that there was a group of people up there. We continued on. We ran into a second, fresher pile of bear scat as we neared the bridge.
We reached the bridge with no sign of the bear or the group of people. A short time later, as we rounded a corner, we saw the bear about 100 yards away. A female black bear with two cubs off to the right, across the creek and quite a bit uphill. We stopped and watched them for a bit. The hikers ahead of us were closer to and directly across from the bears. The mother was more intent on watching them. Seeing the large number of hikers, she decided to take her cubs further uphill and further away from the trail. That was the last we saw of them.
A mother black bear and one of her two cubs
We continued uphill to the Marmot Meadows. This area overlooks and offers great views of Exit Glacier and the beginning of the Harding Icefield.
Flowers in Marmot Meadow and view of Exit Glacier
Exit Glacier
Harding Icefield pours into Exit Glacier
We opted to head back down, as did many of the other hikers, as the route up to the next section still had snow on it. The views of the Kenai Mountains were also spectacular.
Kenai Mountains
This was our first sunny day during our time in Seward and a perfect one for this hike. We did encounter quite a few mosquitos on this trail, but they were not very aggressive and we did not even break out the bug dope. We also walked the nature trail to the view of Exit Glacier.
One side tidbit, this is the glacier that President Barack Obama visited with Bear Grylls on an episode of “Running with Bear Grylls” in 2015.
My pedometer said that we hiked was 6.8 miles, with 131 floors of elevation. We enjoyed the trail and recommend it to people looking for a moderate to difficult trail with lots of elevation change. Take bug dope & bear spray and don’t forget to make plenty of noise.
