Hike VII: Exit Glacier & Harding Ice Fields

It had been raining for weeks now, and so far we've been lucky with getting fairly sunny days for our planned hikes, but since it had been moved to Thursday, it had been raining all week and it was WET. But we wanted to try it anyway. Seward is about 2.5 hours away from Anchorage, so we set out at 7 am hoping for better weather that far away. When we showed up, it had been raining, and everything was wet and muddy, but it wasn't raining at the moment. So we set on up the mountain! Oh dear...
We found the trail head and the stats: 
Right next to the trail head, there was a big sign warning about bears in the park. I had my bear spray on my belt, but I didn't think I'd need it: 
The elevation gain, 3100 feet (approx.) almost all happens at the beginning. We were joking that a lot of it was like rock climbing. See this? This was just ONE of the many times where the trail just stopped and you start to climb: 
But then the stepping-rocks made up for the rock-climbing strain. I really liked gaining altitude this way (using my arms helped take the strain off my legs!). 
Some dancing trees: 
Even with everything already wet and slippery, we crossed an even more slippery wood-plank over a river. This picture doesn't really show how wide the river was. I sound wimpy, but the river was actually pretty big!
A ways up, we were rounding the trails around rocks, going up a hill and we heard people clapping, saying "hey bear! hey bear!" When we got to the top, we saw the small black bear, and it was right on the trail between us and another group across the little gap between the two hills. See the people in blue at the top of the hill?
My bear spray they were laughing at me for. I had it out within seconds!
The Exit Glacier. Still quite a bit of snow up there: 
I love how blue the old ice is: 
When I turned this bend, I was thinking, "we're going there?!" I was in my "ballet slipper-Sketchers" and jeans!:
The trail up in the snow. Part of it were really steep, but other parts were really fun to run, jump and slide through: 
A bit of a steeper view, there is really weird red stuff that rests on the snow, sort of strange!
Very close to the top, there is a shelter with a book inside to sign your name in. Everyone also writes their name in the wood inside and outside of the cabin. But we had no sharp objects or sharpies.. bummer! Underneath the shelter there were gas cans, I'm supposing for fires to keep warm?:
When we got to the very top and looked down on the ice fields, there was a HUGE sink hole. This is zoomed in all the way (12x), and it was so strange looking. It looked like there was a person next to the snow pile, but using binoculars, we still didn't know what it was. And that would have been a gigantic size person... maybe Sasquatch? 
Where we had just hiked from: 
Our group + another couple resting and enjoying the snow-shrouded view:
I was happy to have made it in my little slippers! 
The way down was incredible; the most fun part! I felt like Bear Grylls from Man vs. Wild how he just shoots down hills. We would all jump and slide down the snow; we each fell about 8 times each, but it was hysterical! Here is a tiny view on the way back down through the snow. If I can get the video from Bonnie, I'll try to post it soon.