Leaving Seward, AK and on to Willow

On July 14th we woke up to the glorious sunshine we have been waiting for. After breakfast we went to the dump station and then added fresh water.

Next we were off to Exit Glacier. The valley and surrounding mountains were beautiful. They had signs with dates showing where they believe the glacier was from 1800 and at various intervals. It is definately on its way out. Since 1998 they have added around 100 yards to the trail to get you to the edge of the glacier. Soon you will have to take the 6 to 8 hour strenuous hike to the top of the mountain to see the Harding Ice Field to see the ice up close. That hike was more than we wanted to do today. The Harding Ice Field is 80 miles long and 50 miles wide. It supports dozens of glaciers from Seward all the way over to the Kachemak Bay and Homer. We drove down to a beautiful turnout looking across to the glacier and ate lunch.

I decided I wanted to see the Seavey Dog Kennel. It was just down the road. The Seavey family is perhaps the best known family of dog mushers involved in the Iditarod since its beginning in 1973. Dallas, Danny and Tyrell are the young sons carrying on the tradition. Mitch, their dad has run in 20 Iditarods winning in 2004 and 2013. Grandpa Dan was one of the founders of the race and finished third in 1973 and 5th in 1974. A tour of their facility cost $70 each and involved a bus ride and the rest of the afternoon. (and a sled ride) We opted out but we did spend $70 on books and a nice Seward Iditarod Mile "0" hat for Bob. We bought Dallas's book titled "Born to Mush". It was stories of his life leading up to his win in the 2012 Iditarod to become the youngest champion. We also bought his grandpa Dan's book "The First Great Race" which recounts the events leading up to and including the inaugural race in 1973. The thrill for Bob and I was that Dan (the younger) was working in the office/gift shop when we went in. Bob got to talking with him about the race and some of the past winners. They talked at length about Susan Butcher too. He recounted for us how Dallas had posted his 2nd win in 2014. From the final checkpoint 20 miles out he thought he was racing his dad for 3rd place. Aliy Zirkle had made a fatal mistake and had stopped at the final checkpoint (during a storm that she thought was worse than it was at that time, the leader's dogs had "stopped" and refused to go any further, Aliy was in 2nd place then). She had a 2 1/2 hour lead on Dallas. When she saw him go by she realized her mistake. It took her about 20 minutes to hook up her tean and head out. Dallas didn't even see her on the sidelines due to the blowing snow. He was pushing his team like crazy toward the finish thinking he was trying to hold off his dad for the 3rd place. In actuality it was Aliy who was now only 2 minutes behind. Dallas won and Aliy had to settle for her third second place finish in a row! A very bitter pill because she had the fastest team at the end. Was it her unexplainable error that cost her the win? Can she recover and come back next year? How many top finishes are left in her team? Bob will have to watch the figures next year to find his answers. We headed off to Willow and a night at the Willow Creek State Campground ($10). We were amazed with the beautiful views all the way north with the sun shining and part clouds dappling the rich greens and high peaks of the mountains and valleys along the route.