Day 8: August 28, 2000
Drive from Seward to Interior

I'm sitting in a lovely cabin with a gorgeous view of spectacularly colored mountains all around writing up the day's events. We're staying in Sheep Mountain Lodge at mile 113.5 along the Glenn highway, about two hours northeast of Anchorage. Here's how we got here.

Exit Glacier

We slept in till about 9 and got out fairly quickly. On our way out, we first stopped at the bakery where I got a loaf of freshly baked wheat bread and a hot chocolate. Then we stopped in the grocery store where we stocked up on yet more food. Walendo got a sandwich for lunch and I got a fruit salad for breakfast -- they have a fruit & salad bar in the produce section, and they had nice looking melons pieces, which was perfect. Then we headed out to Exit Glacier. The turn off is just a few miles out of town, and then we drove about 5 miles or so on a gravel road to the entrance. As you're driving in you can see it on the left, a huge swath of white in the middle of some big granite mountains. It was a gorgeous, sunny day and the trees in this area were starting to turn yellow, so it was a very pretty sight.

We paid our $5 at the entry station and got one of those nice National Park maps with information about the place.

Contrast of dirty and clean areas of glacier

We parked, put on all our layers again and hiked in. It's a short trail and most of it is paved. Right at the entrance is a sign that says 1924 (or thereabouts), indicating that's where the glacier's edge was that year. As you walk further in, we saw signs for 1957 and then at 1976? the pavement ended and there was a little hut with informational signs. That must be when they put in the path. We continued on the trail, which took us down to a big gravel valley with a stream of water flowing through it, and then we hiked up closer to the glacier.

Walendo taking photo of glacier

It's pretty impressive -- massive chunks of blueish ice sticking up out of much dirtier ice below. On this trail you could actually walk right up to it and touch it. It was cold. :-) The ice looked smoother than ice we're used to seeing, I guess because it has no air bubbles, it's completely packed in.

I did my part and cleaned off a little bit of the dirty area. Someone really should do something about that. Walendo and I both took a zillion pictures of the beautiful but strange ice patterns. I also was appreciating the views of the mountains around the glacier, which were full of fall colors. Even all the way up the mountain, the grass and groundcover seemed to be red, yellow, and green in various layers, with granite sticking out at the top. Gorgeous. There were lots of people around all admiring the glacier with us, quite of few of them German and Asian. We haven't run into that many foreign tourists so far. We stayed at the glacier for a while longer and then made our way back down again, taking still more pictures along the way. The whole excursion took about 2 hours and it was a very nice little trip.

Waterfall created by glacier

On the drive out, we encountered a yellow labrador that was racing out into the road, chasing after the cars. It didn't have a collar and Walendo thought it was acting like it was looking for its owner. We decided to stop and see if we could bring it to a vet or animal shelter in town before it got killed. We pulled off about 1/4 mile after we saw it, and it had chased us all the way there. Another car pulled along side us when we stopped and asked if we were going to bring the dog in, since they were thinking of doing it too, and we said we were and they thanked us. We moved stuff over to make room in the back seat and the dog immediately jumped in, not at all shy about getting into a stranger's car. It was panting madly and, as we soon discovered, slobbering all over everything. I pet it while Walendo drove. We had noticed a "Pet and Marine" store on the way out of town and Walendo had seen a vet, so we headed there. When we got to the vet's there was a sign saying it was closed cuz the person was out camping. I guess that's how things are around here. Right next to it was a store selling propane, so Walendo went in while I stayed with the dog in the car, not wanting it to jump out. I also gave it some water, which he lapped up instantly. Walendo was in there for a while, so I went in too and the guy was giving him directions to the animal shelter in town. He said they deal with this kind of thingall the time, so it should be okay. That was a relief. I'd hate to have to leave the dog behind with no where safe to leave him.

Red Leaves at Exit Glacier

We got back in the car and drove back into town and followed his directions. We overshot but then found it. There were about 5 or 6 dogs in big fenced pens and one was outside on a chain. A woman came out and I explained that we'd found a dog running loose on Exit Glacier Road and she smiled and said she'd take care of it. Phew, that was good to hear. She got a collar and leash and put it on the dog and we let him out of the car. While she was doing that, I walked over to the dog on the chain and he literally jumped up and put his paws around me in a big hug. He couldn't get enough affection. What a cutie pie. It was so sad to see all these dogs with no owners. Once she had the dog, she asked me to come inside so she could record where we'd found him and such, which I did. I gave another hug to the big dog on my way back to the car, and then we left again. Walendo was worried that someone might be looking for their dog out at the glacier, but the woman said people know where to go if they can't find their dog, so that was good to hear. We were glad we'd stopped to help (even if the car was a bit wet and slobbery after that.)

Colorful field along Seward Highway

We headed out of town for the second time. This time we kept going and made our way through the construction along the road. As we continued on, I was overwhelmed by all the fall colors that seemed to have just started in the last few days. We stopped a bunch of times to take pictures of the bright rust plants against the green / red / yellow / brown of the mountains not far off. A few places there were lakes or rivers reflecting the colors. It was too much to soak in. At one point, we were coming around a bend and saw one of those cover-of-the-book scenes to our right. We immediately turned into the pullout and took a bunch of shots. It was so pretty, it seemed almost too easy.

Scenic pullout on Seward Highway

When we weren't stopping for pictures, we were listening to Harry Potter, which is getting more exciting now. I was glad we'd decided to leave a day early because it gave us much more time to stop along the way, rather than feeling rushed to make a lot of distance the next day. Eventually, we arrived at Portage Glacier, where we'd stopped on the way down, so we knew we were about 60 miles from Anchorage. It's funny, but the views along that stretch of road along Turnagain Arm didn't seem as amazing as the views we'd been seeing more in the hills. We stopped once at a gas station to pee and I saw a Dove Bar that was chocolate with dark chocolate outside, which was all I needed. That was my dessert. (I'd eaten the bread with some cheese in the car earlier while Walendo had eaten his sandwich.) Yum, that was good. Walendo called Andy to see if it was going to work out to hook up with him, but the timing wasn't right and Andy's family was just arriving, so they agreed we'd be sure to have dinner on Thursday.

Dunking Duck

A little closer to Anchorage we drove by some colorful marshlands and Walendo noticed that there was a boardwalk right off the road, so we stopped at the parking lot and took the little walk. It was probably only about 1/2 mile, if that, but it was a nice little break. We saw some salmon hanging out along the little stream and a bunch of ducks bobbing on the water. I took a bunch of pictures of the ducks with the lovely fall colors around them. That was nice. In the parking lot there was a bunch of garbage right on the pavement, which bothered us both. There was no garbage pail in the lot, so we picked it up and took it with us to throw out later. I guess that was our second good deed of the day. We continued on through Anchorage and picked up the beginning of the Glenn Highway, which will take us east across a chunk of the state. We hit a bit of rush hour traffic -- it was about 5:00 or so when we got there. We got gas and switched drivers so I could deal with the traffic. Eventually, it cleared up a bit, though I was surprised that when the highway went to two lanes, people were really bad about driving in the left lane no matter how slow they were going, and never getting over for others. It was as if there was no such convention there. I guess I would have expected this area to be better about it, if only because smaller populations usually do better at following good driving rules.

We continued on and after about a half hour or so we got to Palmer. The Alaska State Fair was there and we thought that if the hotel weren't far away, maybe we'd come by later in the evening. It turned out, though, that even though the hotel is listed in Palmer, it's actually about 100 miles past it. We stopped at Burger King so Walendo could pick up dinner and then carried on.

Scene along Glenn Hwy

After a little while, the Glenn Highway turned into a 2-lane road that wound through the mountains. Gradually the scenery became more and more impressive. There were huge mountains all around us with soft clouds at the tops and colorful trees all around. We began to climb up the side of a mountain and we were looking down on a huge valley that was mostly filled with gravel and a little water. It seemed like they hadn't had much runoff this year or something. As we got higher, though, the valley narrowed and we were looking down on a wide river. At one point we stopped and we saw three people in a canoe down below, making their way through gorgeous country. Walendo decided then that he wants to move here right away. He couldn't get over the views. We continued on admiring the stunning views all the way.

Sheep Mountain Lodge

After a little while longer, we came to mile 113 and the Sheep Mountain Lodge was just up ahead. It's in a little valley with gorgeous colorful mountains all around it. They have a bunch of little cabins in a main lodge. We checked in and they gave us cabin 5. We schlepped our stuff up and arrived in a lovely cabin. It's very spacious and is very nicely decorated and furnished. The bedspreads are a colonial blue & white pewter-like pattern, and the furniture is all rustic pine. We have one big window out the front and one smaller one out the side, and we can just look out and be awed. Apparently there are trails around here as well as river rafting and horseback riding. They also mention their home cooked meals and desserts, so we'll try them out for breakfast. This seems like a wonderful place to come for a weekend if you lived in Anchorage.

Walendo quickly settled himself on the bed to read, and after I had more bread and cheese for dinner, I settled down to write up the days events. I wish we had more time so we could stay here for a few days and take in the area. But I gather that it'll be just as amazing up along the Richardson and then the Denali Highway. This area is quite different from the coast, but it's just as beautiful in different way. In fact I think it's more beautiful. If all days were as warm and sunny as today, I'd love to live here. Tomorrow we may take a little hike around here in the morning, and then we'll continue on up to Denali Highway.

Previous   (Kayaking Resurrection Bay)

Next   (Drive to Denali Highway)