Verses: Isaiah 55:6-7; Matthew 24:42-44
Fun Fact: 51 percent of the land in Kenai Fjords National Park is covered by ice.
Favorite Hike: Due to the steep and rugged terrain within the park, hiking is limited aside from the trails in Exit Glacier area. I recommend doing a kayak trip to get into the backcountry. Check out Holgate or Aialik cabin.
Kenai Fjords National Park runs along the Kenai Peninsula coast in south-central Alaska, where the coast meets the sea. You can find fjords, coves, and bays, carved and shaped by glaciers over the years, some of the most beautiful scenery within the NPS. Given the terrain, hiking is limited in the park, but there are a number of activities available to explore.
Boat tours and fishing are popular activities in Kenai and the surrounding areas, as well as kayaking. Many people will do multi-day kayak trips, one of the best ways to experience the backcountry. There are a number of marine mammals within the surrounding waters, who find it the perfect spot for their summer home including otters, seals, sea lions, porpoises, orcas, and humpback whales.
The Harding Icefield is one of the primary attractions within the park. It is a 700+ square mile sheet of ice up to a mile thick. Nearly 40 glaciers flow from the Harding Icefield, with Exit Glacier being the most popular. It is one of the only parts of the parks accessible by road. There is a nature center and a number of trails that take you to various lookout points along the path of the glacier. You can do the full trail up to the ice field, which is about nine miles round trip from the parking lot with a 3500-foot climb.
If you have visited some of the well-known glaciers around the world, Exit included, one thing you have probably noticed on the trail leading to it is plaques indicating the year when the glacier reached that point, showing the recession of the glacier over time. Exit Glacier continues to recede. Scientist have recreated Exit Glacier’s history over the last 200 years, finding it has been receding at a rate of approximately 162 feet per year since 2010.
While the glacier may be slowly dwindling, it’s still incredibly impressive and awesome to see close up. You can’t help but wonder what it looked like 50 or 100 years ago, or what it will look like in another 20, 30 or 50 years. Seeing Exit Glacier made me appreciate that I was able to see it while it’s still here. This is not intended to be a debate on climate change, but I think we can all agree that glaciers are changing; they are moving, and they are shifting. That is their very definition:
Glacier: a slowly moving mass or river of ice formed by the accumulation and compaction of snow on mountains or near the poles.
And for the vast majority, they are retreating. It is an undeniable truth of this world that things will change and over time, some things will cease to exist, including us. I don’t say this to convey a depressing and bleak outlook but rather as an encouragement. Not just an encouragement to see aspects of this earth while you can, but an encouragement of much greater significance: to seek the Lord while you can because, friends, you can be sure, there will come a time where that is no longer an option.
The Bible tells us that life is short, and that we don't know how much time we have, only the Lord does. The Word says our days are numbered, that we are fleeting, like a breath or vanishing mist (Job 14:5, Psalm 39:4, Psalm 144:4).
Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. – James 4:14
We also don’t know when the Lord is coming—no one does—but the Lord tells us to be prepared and to keep watch (Luke 21:36, 2 Timothy 4:2-5).
“Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.” – Matthew 24:42-44
We must prepare our souls, hearts and minds for the day we will meet the Lord. I think this is most clearly described in Isaiah 55:
“Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. —Isaiah 55:6-7
This verse is a clear calling to repentance. The Lord is quick to warn of our fate if we don’t turn away from sin and quick to offer forgiveness, grace and mercy to those repent and turn to him, putting their faith in Jesus as Lord.
Can a retreating glacier teach us about repentance? It can and I pray it does. Beloved, forsake your sinful ways and turn to the Lord while you still can.
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