like an olive in a martini

I forgot to write in the last post my favorite comment from our kayaking trip ... as we were paddling through some icebergs, Ross made the comment that now he knows what it feels like to be an olive in a martini.

This is our last full day here in Seward. We woke up this morning to bright blue, sunny skies (it's been overcast so far). Wow.

We're taking it easy today, looking around town and checking out the videos and displays on the Earthquake. Two days ago, we hiked Mount Marathon, home of the Mount Marathon trail run. This race is on the extreme end of trail running -- it is just 3.5 miles, but has an elevation gain of about 3000 feet. Coming down is scree in the good parts, but hardscrabble and cliffs (yes, truly cliffs) the majority of the time.

Yesterday, we met up with our new friends Helen and Matt to hike the Harding Ice Field. We met Helen and Matt in Denali when we had come out of the backcountry a bit early. Helen, Matt, and another woman, Marta also came out early and we all wound up sharing a campsite when we came back to find everything full (luckily the camp hosts had a site held back for such occassions). I took a ton of pictures, but there is no way that they can do justice to what we saw yesterday. At the top of the climb, you are on the top of a massive ice field (1,100 sq. miles) that feeds up to 40 glaciers. Ice and the tips of mountains stretch off to the horizon. Hiking down, we saw our first Alaskan black bear and were amused by the very outgoing marmots along the trail. Including one that led to my favorite question of the day, "What do you do if a marmot attacks?!?"

Tomorrow we are taking a bus back to Anchorage, then flying out on the red-eye. We'll be back in Oregon around 8:30 Sunday morning. I can't believe we've been gone for almost 3 weeks now! I have over 400 pictures on my camera -- when we get back, I'll put on them on the web, so you can get a better idea of what we've been talking about in these posts (if you'd like).