Friday July 16

We started the day with a visit from the campground host warning us of a brown bear sighting in the campground. We were leaving shortly anyway.
We headed to Seward and saw a sign for the Bear Lake Fish Weir. I had read something about it somewhere so we decided to go back and find it. Sure enough we found it and there were three guys looking at it already. They were knowledgeable about the process and were glad to share their knowledge. We watched the creek and saw a few salmon and every now and then you would see one jump up the weir. Many did not make it and would settle back in the creek to rest. We walked across the road beside of the weir to where the creek entered pipes to go under the road. There were a lot of salmon just hanging out there in the current. I took a few pictures when I heard Deatra scream. I though a bear had us but a bald eagle had flown down the creek bed and startled her. He went up at the road and went on his way. We went back over to the building to watch some more when the biologist that gets the fish out came up to clean out the trap.
The fish swim up into the weir and go into a submerged trap that they can raise and lower. They raise the trap up and net the fish out. At the given time depending on numbers of fish running, they raise the trap and get the fish out with a net. Males are put into a large ice cooler, females are released through a pipe that drops them in a holding pond they can swim out of and upstream to Bear lake.
Today they released 34 females and kept 23 males. The biologist sold the males to the three guys.
I talked to the biologist a few minutes after he was done. He said they recapture the females out of the lake and harvest the eggs for the hatchery operation. He said they raise over 600,000 fry a year. He said in his time he had raised 350 million fish. He called them his babies. After they are hatched they are released to go to the ocean an repeat the process. he also said that during the peak of the run they had to empty the trap every two hours because of the weight. For 10 days during the peak they catch 6000 fish per day. Today's catch was overnight as we are at the tail end of the run. I will post pictures of this later.
We then headed for Kenai Fjord National Park to visit Exit Glacier. This glacier is 2 miles long and drops 2700 vertical feet. They have several trails you can walk. The short ones go to the glacier viewing area at the out wash, about .4 miles one way. Another goes to the glacier edge at 1.2 miles one way. Finally up to the Harding Icefields at 4 miles one way. We opted for the 1.2 mile trek. It was a fairly rugged trail in some parts and uphill all way. The view was great when you reached the top. The ranger said the ice is 500 feet deep but up in the Harding Ice field the ice is 1500 feet deep. This glacier is part of the Harding Ice field which is 20 miles wide and 30 miles long. It was really neat to see this huge thing up close.
We went on into Seward to look around and use the city's dump station. About 4 o'clock we decided to go find a campground and have a relaxing evening. We grilled hamburgers, took a nap, and walked O for a while. Tomorrow we are going to visit The Alaska Sea life Center.