Ice Caves and Glaciers

Monday night, we arrived in Juneau from Sitka. As the third largest city in Alaska, it definitely had a larger feel than Sitka or Ketchikan – but like every place we’ve been to in Alaska so far, the cities are dwarfed by the landscapes around it. That’s one thing in particular that Dave and I have noticed and liked about this state. Human development here really acts only as a gateway to the wild. Juneau, for example, is tucked along the coast between the mountains and the water. It only spreads a little up into the surrounding hillsides, but then it stops – and wilderness takes over from there.

We arrived in the evening, picked up our car and went to check in to the Alaska’s Capital Inn. The owners were out for the evening, so we were greeted by their Scottish Terrier. The place was quaint and Victorian. They decorated it beautifully. We were so tired when we arrived that we ended up falling asleep for an hour before dinnertime.

Chelsea Good, our friend and my work colleague, was expected to arrive into Juneau that evening. So we found a local restaurant, open late, and headed over to get a table for all of us. The Island Pub was across the inlet in Douglas, was definitely a local hangout – far out of reach of the cruise ships – and had really great pizza. We got a table with a view of the water, mountains and sea planes and waited for Chelsea to arrive. When her taxi pulled up, we had a great big Alaska reunion and grilled her on her trip details while we ate dinner.

 Day 1 Juneau – Ice Cave Hunting

On Tuesday morning, we all slept in a little bit. Linda and Mark, the innkeepers, made us a very large breakfast of zucchini quiche, home style potatoes, homemade muffins and jam and tres leches cake for dessert (a breakfast dessert!) We were joined by a couple who had stayed there many times before. They ran a marionette puppet company for kids, had troupes all over the country and picked the best locations for themselves. Apparently they toured Alaska every year for about five weeks and know the state very well from moving from small community to small community.

After breakfast, we picked up Chelsea and headed out on our planned hike for the day. We had decided to hike the West Trail at Mendenhall Glacier – about an 8-mile roundtrip. The trail description had also pointed out a side route to an ice cave. We didn’t really have a sense of what they meant, so we thought we’d add that section and see what we could find.

The day was cloudy, but with a high ceiling and no rain. As we started out on our hike, we realized that the clouds were actually a benefit, because it made the rainforest canopy glow in a vivid green. The trail started out easy and flat and meandered through the forest. The three of us chatted and enjoyed the creeks, large spruce trees, deep green moss and the quiet. It was a gorgeous forest hike, and every now and then we got a peak through the vegetation out to the large Mendenhall Lake and surrounding mountains.

The trail description had indicated that the locals knew about ice caves along the glacier. And that when the weather was dry and the conditions were right, you could take a small side trail and scramble over some rocks and find them. We didn’t really know what to expect – just something small and interesting to check out. Our innkeeper Linda mentioned them too – said that the spur trail was often marked with survey tape, and if you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t have any reason to step off trail to head in that direction.

We saw the sign for the first “view point” of the lake, where the description said the trail would be, and sure enough there was a side trail with a sign that said “you are now leaving the official maintained West Lake Trail.” Sure, why not? We headed in that direction through the forest.

Soon we realized that this trail was not a short side trip. We followed the trail for awhile, traversing some steep rocky hills. Luckily we had a dry day, so nothing was slick. But we quickly understood why everyone said not to do this if it was wet or raining.

We came out of the trees and faced a mountainside of rocks and boulders. Looking way up ahead, we saw people climbing and scrambling up over the rock face. It was clear that this was the direction we were supposed to go and that this “side trail” would be taking us down to the very face of the glacier itself. We set off to tackle it. Chelsea, Dave and I were now determined to find out what this ice cave was all about.

We climbed and scrambled, and lifted and lowered ourselves over hard rock and loose rock. We pulled each other up, and gripped onto rock faces and climbed over ridges. It was not easy work. But we were having a blast and kept going. The further we went, the closer we got to the face of the Mendenhall Glacier. Between the mountains and rocky landscape and the enormous glacier face, it felt like we were traversing in another world. And every once in awhile, we’d catch a glimpse of other people way ahead of us – and we knew that we continued to remain in “charted” territory.

Finally we walk/slid down a final incline and we were officially at the face of the glacier with the huge, hundreds-of-feet high ice chunks looming above us. This glacier face is not the type that creates a high wall, rather it slopes down into the lake where it melts and crumbles into the water. Where we were standing was not dangerous, but it did feel like a place where humans didn’t really belong.

There is no way to truly capture the sense of scale when standing that close to a glacier. It felt like a looming, vivid blue and white, creature , churning, cracking and booming in front of us – and as if, any moment, it would exhale, releasing another car-sized block of ice into the lake below.

We lingered there awhile and assumed that what we were looking at was considered the ice caves. But we kept seeing small groups of people hike down the side of the glacier, half on the mountain half on the ice, on the very West side of the face. We thought, let’s do it. No matter what, it would be interesting to see what was up there over the ridge. By then we were chilly – the air coming off the glacier made it very cold – and we bundled up in every layer that we brought with us. We also stopped to put our Yaktrax on over our hiking boots. Yaktrax are rubber covers, similar to putting chains on a tire, that cover the bottom of your shoes with metal coils that make it easier to get traction on snow and ice. And up the mountainside we went.

 

We realized as we climbed up the side that some of what we were walking on was dirt and some of it was dirt-covered glacier. But it was in a relatively safe area and was very stable. Every now and then, we could see small cracks that showed the brilliant blue ice deep underneath the dirty top layers. It was like cold blue gemstone plastic covered in silt and muck.

When we arrived at the top, we looked down and realized there was a small riverbed below and that the water was running down under the icy area we had just climbed. We head a few voices at the base, so we scrambled down the side to the water’s edge. And then we saw it. The water had carved a 30-foot high smooth-as-silk cave under the ice field we had just climbed along. The river disappeared in a rocky, silt-lined bed beneath and the walls of this cave were the bluest blue I’d ever seen. We were in total awe. I think we all were frozen there for a minute and didn’t know what to think. We felt like we stumbled into a magical place where we didn’t belong.

We stood and gaped and started to take pictures. And that’s when we saw a few people hike out of the cave. We now realized that we would always regret it, if we didn’t explore it for ourselves. We jumped across the stream bank and worked our way in.

Inside, the cave was raining with glacier melt. The ceiling and walls were rippled in turquoise translucent blue – the smoothest, hardest ice I’ve ever seen. And at the end was a waterfall in the ice that was illuminated by a large perfectly round skylight in the ice field above. This was an under-ice paradise. We cautiously kept working our way to the end of the cave. By then, we were the only ones in there. When we arrived at the waterfall at the back, we were bathed in melting ice and sunlight. We stood there and stared up at the sky and felt so very much alive –  laughing and exclaiming in awe! We were living the kind of moment that only happened to certain people that you’ve heard about somewhere or saw on TV.

After about 20 minutes of exploring the cave we emerged back in the world and decided to have lunch along the banks of the stream. We pulled out our French bread and cheese and salami and fruit and chocolate and just sat there (cold and wet) staring at the cave entrance, still in disbelieve of what we just did.

Then came the several hour scramble back to the main trail. After about six hours of hiking, we decided there was definitely no need to continue along the original trail, so we headed back to car. We were exhausted and inspired. And so after a quick visit to the Mendenhall Visitors Center (where for $3 you could touch real glacier ice!) we sought out the Alaskan Brewing tasting room in town to enjoy some beers and revel in our discovery that day.

That night we had a mediocre touristy dinner at the Twisted Fish Co and headed to bed early. We were exhausted from the hike that day – and we had a 3:45 a.m. wake-up call for Wednesday’s adventure!

Day 2 Juneau – Glacier Country

In order to get to Glacier National Park – you have to take a boat or a plane to Gustavus and the park entrance. From there, you can only enter the park on the one authorized daytrip catamaran boat tour. It is an 8-hour tour narrated by a local park ranger. To make this a day trip, the three of us needed to catch a 5:20 a.m. flight from Juneau to Gustavus. As we sat there, bleary-eyed in the airport, we kept reminding ourselves that this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We were in Alaska, and we had to go to Glacier Bay!

We were booked with Seaport Airlines on a small Cessna that would get us to Gustavus in only 25 minutes. The passengers were the three of us and two other people that were braving the same early-morning day trip option. It was a semi-cloudy day, but the flight across the channel to the park entrance was breathtaking nonetheless. And before we knew it, we were on the ground on the tiny island. A van picked us up and drove us the 10 minutes to the park lodge and by 7:15 a.m. we were on the boat and ready to head out on the day’s adventure.

Since we were so early in the season, there were only 40 people booked on the boat, that usually can be full with up to 150 people. The three of us grabbed a corner spot on the top deck with the best window from the inside cabin – which became our home base for the next 8 hours.

The boat worked its way up one side of the park channel, all the way to the spectacular mile-long glacier faces at the end and then back down the other side. For most of the time, the three of us were out on deck. It was cold and windy, but whenever the sun broke through, it was heavenly. Along the way we spotted sea otters, sea lions, puffins, bald eagles, arctic terns and other amazing birds. We also spotted a grizzly bear on the hillside, several humpback whale tails disappearing into the water and numerous mountain goats and their babies. We saw gorgeous glacier valleys, towering snow-capped mountains and massive living glaciers calving into the sound. The beauty of the day was spectacular and the scale and expanse of the great wilderness out there is not something that is easily conveyed through words.

And plus, it was fun. We met new people, we ate food, drank beer, danced on the deck, hunted for wildlife through binoculars – and for much of the trip, we were the only three on the top deck as the boat raced along. It was like having the entire Glacier National Park all to ourselves.

When we got back to the lodge around 3:30 in the afternoon, we passed out in front of a huge fireplace. I napped, Dave and Chelsea played cards and drank beer and we all totally relaxed and waited for our van back to the airport.

By 6:30 we were back on a Cessna and by 7 p.m. we were back in Juneau and searching for dinner. We decided to go to a great local restaurant called The Rookery. It’s a coffee shop by day and at night, a local chef has started cooking dinner. It’s a different menu every night, all local ingredients. The food was delicious. We shared mac-n-cheese, scallops and a spinach salad for appetizers. Chelsea and I had King Salmon with BBQ rub that was cooked perfectly and Dave had halibut with peach kimchee and Vietnamese crepes. We finished dinner off with butterscotch caramel bread pudding made with chunks of sourdough.

After being thoroughly stuffed we wandered around town in the late-night sun and peaked in all of the Juneau tourist shop windows – searching for that perfect “whale charm” or gem stone that “is one of a kind and today only half off!” And since it was sadly Chelsea’s last night in Alaska we sought out one of the last places in town open for drinks. The very local Viking Club bar, with some questionable karaoke in full swing. We had a drink, Chelsea held court with the locals and we laughed and chatted the rest of the night away.

The next morning, Dave and I were heading up North to Anchorage, with another two weeks of vacation ahead of us and Chelsea was heading back to the lower 48. It was great spending two days with a friend who definitely shares our adventurous spirit. We only hope to be able to continue to top the amazing stories we’ve created thus far.