Seward to Williwaw was the plan

We had light rain overnight; glad we're not in a tent. The furnace stopped working sometime in the night, and we woke up with the inside temperature 57 F. We cycled the furnace a couple of times, and it lit up. Wimps.

The morning's plan is to send a bunch of heavy books, maps, etc. home by mail; we don't want to encounter the airline's punitive luggage weight charge.

Next we head to The Exit Glacier outside Seward, then drive closer to Anchorage aiming for a national forest service campground at Williwaw near the Portage Glacier.

Along the road to The Exit Glacier were signs showing where it ended up years ago.

 1894

I thought this sign was great, understated, and funny in a way. Then it dawned that it is serious. This is the first I'd seen a warning about 'eat you'. I'd rather not think about it.

Along our walk, I kept talking. Ginnie who was behind me asked if I was talking to her, I replied, "no, to the bears."

1926

We didn't attempt to hike to the glacier as we didn't have appropriate footware, or interest in bears.

There was much moose scat. So much so, that I was grateful we didn't encounter the moose.

The Exit Glacier, May 2012.

 

Next stop, the Portage Valley and the Portage Valley Glacier.

We learned that the native word Williwaw means wind. The Portage valley where we planned to spend the night at the Williwaw Campground is a wind tunnel between Prince William Sound and the Turnagain Arm. We drove into the campground, saw no one there, the RV was rocking in the wind, and we figured that it wouldn't be a good night's sleep there.

We may have seen the glacier, but we didn't venture out to check. It was cold and very windy.

We moved on to the visitors center in a driving rain.

So we winged it, heading towards Anchorage without a plan. We found a small state fishing access parking lot at Bird Creek which allowed overnight camping for a small charge. We grilled the last of our frozen salmon for dinner, cleaned out the cupboard, finished packing, and got ready for our early morning check in at Great Alaskan Holidays.

 

Miles today 129, total 4580.