Great hike. Best to go early or beat the crowds. Kids 10 and 8 found it fairly easy.
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A challenging hike to a special place. It is easy to pass the side trail (we did) to go down to the surface of Exit Glacier. Continue on and you will see Exit Glacier on the left and Harding Ice Field (HIF) ahead. To get to HIF, the trail becomes less clear and you must go down about 600+ feet of slide-ably steep terrain. I only went half down.
Aside from the spectacular views (we had good weather) we saw marmots, close-up ptarmigans, magpies. An approaching party reported a bear cub.
You must have experience ascending at least 1,000 to 2,000 feet to handle this 3,000 foot-plus elevation change. It is not sufficient to just have hiked a similar surface distance. Different leg muscles are required. Especially challenging are the hundreds of large rock steps as you return downhill. If you do not have strong knees, you will experience pain!
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