Ice Climbing on Exit Glacier, Seward Alaska

Day 2 continued the action packed week, with an ice-climbing trip with Exit Glacier guides.

Theme song: The Wishing Well by Walter Martin.

We (five tourists, two guides) met in their office to get fitted with mountaineering boots, crampons, and helmets (as well as lunch and some snacks). After a short drive to the exit glacier parking lot we started hiking up the Harding Ice Field trail to access the ice.

The hike up is fairly steep and the day was warm, so we did it in T-shirts. The mosquitoes on the trail are pretty intense, definitely recommend bringing some repellent. You hike 2.4 miles to the "top of cliffs overlook" then turn left down an unmarked trail that takes you to the side of the glacier. This is the optimum point for ice climbing on the glacier: good width crevasses without too much snow.

View over the outwash plain from the Harding Ice Field trail

Exit Glacier

A glacier hiking trip starting out ahead of us

Crampons on, ready for ice

Setting up the first practice climb

Walking on ice

View up the glacier towards the icefield

Setting anchors with ice screws. We ran two ropes into each crevasse.

All up I think we climbed around 5 times in three different crevasses. Longest climb was probably around 20m. Some of the crevasses were much deeper in places (I couldn't see the actual bottom), but we usually just belayed down until we hit a snow bridge. Climbing wasn't physically challenging, more technically challenging being in the right posture, kicking your feet in correctly etc. We used the guides' ice tools to do the actual climbing, and just hiking poles for stability when walking on the ice.

We went from T-shirts on the trail to multiple layers, down jackets and shells on the glacier itself. It's dramatically colder air coming down the ice.

Looking up, about to climb

It was great fun, and much more interesting than just tramping around on the glacier. The hardest part of the whole thing is getting belayed over the edge of the crevasse. Anyone with good fitness should be able to handle one of these trips.

MTB: Lost Lake Trail, Seward Alaska

First activity of the Alaska trip: mountain biking the Lost Lake Trail, the #1 trail in Alaska on mtbproject.com.

Theme song: The Wishing Well by Walter Martin.

I rented a bike from the Seward Bike Shop:




The shop is run by Ron, who knows everything there is to know about local mountain biking. He didn't have full suspension bikes for rent, but I got a Kona hardtail for about $35/day. I posted the opening hours for the shop on the Google maps entry. You can actually ride to the trail from the shop (4.5 miles one-way), there's an off-road path beside the highway that looks like it goes most of the way.

I took the wheels off and fit the bike into the tiny little compact Toyota Yaris I had rented, which BTW cost almost $100/day with all the fees. Rental cars are really expensive in Alaska.

The trail is fantastic and is now in my top 5 rides of all time. Not super technical, so the climb isn't too hard, although there were probably a couple of places I pushed over a rocky ledge on the way up. It would be really easy to surprise a bear on the trail, especially when moving quickly on a bike, so I wore multiple bells and carried bear spray.

Descent is all downhill, pretty fast, obstacles are mainly rocks and small creek crossings. Lost Lake was completely free of snow on Jun 17, but there was still quite a bit of snow on the Primrose trail at the top. I went that way to check it out, and pushed through snow for a few km, but it wasn't particularly fun. If there's snow on Primrose when you get up there I wouldn't bother going too far.

From the top you can see all the way back to Seward and Resurrection Bay

Approaching Lost Lake

Lost Lake, with quite a bit of snow and ice cover hanging around

Turned right onto the Primrose Trail and almost immediately hit snow.

Great view of more of the lake from the Primrose Trail. Most of the camping spots are on this side in somewhat protected gullies. It's worth coming around this way a bit, to get this view. I kept struggling through snow on the Primrose trail for 4km before turning around again. I wouldn't recommend it, it was hard work and not fun riding.

Spectacular view for the start of the descent

Orcas Island: MTB and hiking

Camping trip to check out the mountain biking on Orcas. You can only ride the trails there in the shoulder season before they get too busy with hikers in the summer.

Theme song: Paint It Black by Ramin Djwadi. Pretty much the whole Westworld soundtrack really.

Ferry from Ana Cortes to Orcas

Stupidly pretty views from Mt. Constitution. Mt. Baker centre stage

Hard to see in the photo, but from this one viewpoint you could see Rainier, Baker, and Vancouver.

Beautiful campsite, Moran State Park "South End".

The next day it was back up to Mt. Constitution with the bike, ready to shred.

The riding was amazing. Really nice singletrack with stupendous views, beautiful lakes, and pretty much zero people. Now in my top 10 all time favourite rides. The only other person I saw was E who was hiking the same trails, and the people with a truck who gave me a shuttle to the top for a second lap :)

Cascade Falls

The next day we headed out to Obstruction Pass State Park for a short hike. There's a hike-in campsite here that would be do-able with the kids.

Las Vegas: MTB, Red Rocks, Mt. Charleston

We had to get out from under Seattle's winter clouds again, Hawaii was not nearly enough. So we looked around for places that weren't too far, weren't too expensive, and were warm and sunny. Vegas was easily the best option, but I hate the Vegas casino strip so this was going to be a very different trip to the one most people make.

Theme song: Cocoon by Milky Chance.

Fortunately Vegas has an amazing array of natural scenery to offer. First up, Red Rock Canyon. We did the Calico Tanks walk, which was really beautiful and the kids had a lot of fun rock scrambling to the top.

So much rock scrambling

Looking out of the canyon from the center point

The kids were very much done hiking for the day, so E and I took turns to walk the lost creek trail while they slept in the car.

Obligatory Bellagio visit

The next day we went to great playground (exploration peak park). We'd promised the kids swimming and the pool at our condo wasn't ready: it was green :( There actually weren't that many pools open at all. We finally settled on the M Resort and Spa Casino which had a heated pool that was decently priced, open to non-guests, and was really nice. Would do it again.

The next day was mountain biking for me. Rented a full suspension bike from Mcghies Bike Outpost in Blue Diamond, which sits at the foot of many miles of really amazing desert singletrack. The bike shop was great, and even let me leave my post-ride beer in their fridge.

The riding is top notch, I had an absolute ball, and rode about 37km. Weather was good, although could have done with less wind.

Great singletrack with beautiful canyon scenery

This Joshua tree used to have a really big branch you needed to duck under.

The next day we went to the acquarium at Mandalay Bay. It was decent, but not amazing. I was enthralled for quite some time watching a huge octopus move around though.

On our final day we drove up to Mt. Charleston. At the (very new and beautiful) visitors centre they were desperate for kids to do their young ranger program, so we did. Afterwards we hiked up Fletcher Canyon, which was a really great walk. In the final section the canyon walls close in tightly, and there was still a bit of snow to navigate around.