Exit Glacier

The glacier owes its odd name to a feat of mountaineering rather than to any feature on a map. In the spring of 1968 the first documented party to cross the vast Harding Icefield came down this glacier on its way out, and newspapers reported that the group would descend the glacier as its exit route off the ice. The name stuck, and ever since this has been the Exit Glacier.

That origin fits the place. Exit is the doorway between two worlds, the accessible valley floor where visitors walk in an hour and the immense, trackless icefield above where only serious expeditions go. Stand at the foot of the ice and you are looking up the same slope those first crossers came down, the low end of a frozen highway that runs back for miles over the buried mountains.

The most quietly powerful thing about Exit Glacier is not the ice itself but the signs on the way to it. Along the road and the trail, dated markers show where the glacier's toe stood in past years, going back generations. You walk forward past one year after another, and each time you pass a marker you are standing where the solid ice used to be, closing the gap toward where it reaches today.

The retreat has been long and steady, and the ice has pulled back well over a mile from where it once ended, once reaching far closer toward the Seward valley than it does now. That makes Exit one of the clearest and most visited places in the country to actually see glacial retreat with your own feet, not as a chart but as a walk.

Because the ice keeps moving, the exact gap changes from year to year, and the rangers update the story as it does. The lesson stays the same. Few places let a family understand a changing climate so plainly, simply by walking from an old marker to the living edge of the ice.

For most visitors the walk is the Edge of the Glacier trail, a loop of about a mile round trip that is partly paved and partly gravel, with benches along the way, leading to overlooks close to the ice. It is short enough for families and casual walkers, and it delivers the payoff of standing near flowing glacier ice without a hard climb.

The big hike is the Harding Icefield Trail, and it is a serious one, roughly four miles up and back down again, gaining thousands of feet as it climbs the valley wall beside the glacier. Those who make it are rewarded with one of the great views in Alaska, a look out over the Harding Icefield stretching white and unbroken to the horizon, with rock peaks rising through it like islands.

Both trails share the same valley, so a strong group can taste the icefield high above while an easier group enjoys the glacier's edge below, then meet back at the nature center to compare notes and check the wildlife board.

The glacier is reached from Seward by turning onto Herman Leirer Road, also called Exit Glacier Road, just north of town and following it about eight miles to the nature center. The road is seasonal, open in the warmer months and closed to cars in winter, when it becomes a quiet route for skiers, fat-bikers, and dog teams instead. Aim for a warm-season day if you want to drive up and walk to the ice.

There are no stores at the glacier, only the nature center and restrooms, so bring water, snacks, rain gear, and layers, and fuel up and stock up in Seward first. This is bear country, so make noise on the trail, carry your bear awareness, and never approach a moose or a bear. The ice is active and can calve or shift, so stay behind the barriers and off the glacier unless you are on a guided trip.

Give it a half day for the easy loop and a full, committing day for the icefield climb. Either way it is a rare chance to meet an Alaskan glacier on foot, close enough to feel the cold air pouring off the ice, at the end of a short drive from a friendly harbor town.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.