Exit Glacier Nature Center

Exit Glacier Nature Center is the road-end visitor hub and trailhead for Kenai Fjords’ Exit Glacier area, the park’s only part reachable by car. It’s a good first stop: exhibits and ranger advice help you choose between a short glacier view and a much longer climb. The center is at the end of an 8.4-mile drive on Herman Leirer Road from the Seward Highway, with the parking lot beside the building and trails.

The one-mile Glacier View Loop passes through cottonwood forest to a panoramic view of Exit Glacier flowing off the Harding Icefield. It’s wheelchair accessible, with a mix of pavement and compacted gravel; a limited number of wheelchairs can be borrowed when the center is open. The Glacier Overlook Trail adds a moderately strenuous walk of about 0.6 mile from the kiosk to a higher view into the carved valley. The Harding Icefield Trail is a separate, strenuous 7.8-mile round trip that usually takes most of a day.

Exit Glacier’s retreat is marked by dated ridges of rock called recessional moraines, each left near an earlier edge of the ice. Meltwater carries fine, ground-up rock called glacial flour, which turns the rivers gray and spreads across the outwash plain in shifting braided channels.

Exit Glacier flows down from the Harding Icefield, which averages about 60 feet of snow a year. In Kenai Fjords, snow compacts into glacier ice over roughly four to ten years. On the drive in, look at the steep sides and broad, flat floor of the U-shaped valley carved by ice; rocks along the Edge of Glacier Trail also carry scratches left by ice and gravel.

There’s no meal service at the center. You’ll find an Alaska Geographic bookstore, picnic tables by the lot, seasonal potable water, and restrooms that switch from flush toilets in summer to pit toilets the rest of the year. Parking is limited and can be tight around midday. The center operates seasonally, and snow usually keeps cars off Exit Glacier Road from late October into mid-May, so check conditions before driving in winter or shoulder season. Leashed pets can stay on the road and in the parking lot, but not on the trails.