Category Archives: glacier moraine

The Ice Cave

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Aki is leading some out-of-town guests and me across Mendenhall Lake to the glacial ice cave. Mount McGinnis and the Mendenhall Towers form a jagged skyline against the indigo sky. It’s easy walking. Previous ice cave pilgrims have pounded our path smooth. 

            We got a late start. It’s still only 23 degrees F but the temperature is rising. Even now snow melt is seeping onto the moraine trail, making it too slipper to use without poodle paws or ice cleats. We have both. I ask hikers returning from the glacier if they made it to the cave. None managed it. Undeterred, Aki presses on, leading us across the mile-wide lake and onto the moraine. 

            To avoid sliding into a crevasse or rocks, we climb up hillsides rather than risk ice-covered sections of the trail. Translucent slabs of ancient ice line the trail, encouraging us to press on to the cave. 

            A jumble of clear, blue-tinted ice forms the only access to the cave. Aki refuses to enter. But her humans pretzel their way into the aquamarine-colored chamber. It has the same scalloped roof of the other ice caves we have visited. The roof and walls of those caves imprisoned round, foot-sized rocks. None decorate this cave. 

            Drawn by a patch of bright, white light striking the floor on the opposite side of the cave, I cross a still-frozen stream and enter a vertical tube of scalloped ice. Above a series of ice lens offer circular views of blue sky and clouds. I can’t think of another view like it. 

Nugget Falls

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Our sunny streak continues today. Aki some friends and I take advantage by hiking out to Nugget Falls. Previous hikers stomped out a narrow trail through deep snow. Frost feathers on top of the snow sparkle enough to hurt my eyes. Aki doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe that’s because she is so busy herding two other humans and I. 

            Since she can’t see over the snow banks on either side of the trail, it is hard for her to carry out her duties. We humans try to stay close to each other to ease her load. 

            The falls are roaring when we arrive even though the snow along the trail is still frozen. But it looks like the spring melt is on in the Nugget Creek Valley.  

Morning Light on Fresh Snow

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Sometime during the night a powerful high tide scattered 8-inch-thick pans of ice on the trail. The wet snowstorm that plagued us for several days moved on. Fresh morning light shines on the fresh snow covering Fish Creek Pond. As an added bonus, the snow provides good footing. When it melts in a hour or so, the ice-covered trail will be too slick to walk on without ice cleats. 

At first the place is silent. No eagle cries as we round the pond and walk out onto the spit that separates Fish Creek from Fritz Cove. No mallard cackles. Then we hear a bald eagle complaint. On the grassy bank of the creek, the noisy eagle is spreading its wings to dry them.  It has the white head and tail of a mature bird but the mottled wings of a young one. It looks wet and disheveled. 

We won’t see any other birds on the way to the creek mouth. A man with his Labrador retriever will flushed them first by walking around on the wetlands. He will wear the camo clothing of a hunter but there is nothing for him to hunt. 

I will debate whether it is any of my business where the man walks. I will argue that it is his responsibility not to intimidate the wild residents off the wetlands when so much of the food-rich ground is exposed by a very low tide.  I will follow Aki’s example and concentrate on the fresh light on fresh snow. 

Herding Humans

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When the winter wind blows in a normally calm place like Mendenhall Lake, it can sting. Aki knows this. If she didn’t before, she is learning it now. She trots just behind one of her humans as he skis into a thirty-knot wind. The skier takes the brunt of the wind. It flows over his unprotected face, making the 22-degree air feel like zero. Cleaver Aki uses him like a windbreak.

            It’s not all beer and skittles for the little dog.  When her humans spread out  she must leave her wind shadow and run back to round up someone who has stopped to photograph the glacier. Then she squints her eyes into the wind, spots her other charge and runs full tilt to him. In a minute she is back urging the photographer not to doddle. 

Penitents at the Glacier Face

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Lured by promises of a new ice cave, Aki and her humans headed out to the toe of Mendenhall Glacier. It’s been snowing all day, making it easier to ski the 1.2 miles across Mendenhall Lake to the glacier. Those of us on skis used a soft track set by previous skiers. The little dog found a superhighway pounded flat by walking pilgrims. 

            One man stared up at the face of the glacier when we arrived. When he left we had the place to ourselves. Before seeking entrance to the cave, we enjoyed the abstract forms created by an assemblage of icebergs. Between two geometric blacks stood a slice of ice in form of penitent monk. He bowed in the direction of the cave.

            Accepting the monk’s guidance, we skied to up to the glacier and found a thin opening to the ice cave. I had to drop onto to my knees to see under a very low ceiling.  By crawling on my stomach, I could have accessed the cave’s interior.  Since I didn’t bring rain gear, I had to settle for a filtered view.

Skiing To the Glacier

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It was 24 above when we left home this morning. Aki and I are dressed accordingly. Unfortunately the temperature hovers around 12 degrees F. as we slide onto Mendenhall Lake. The little dog doesn’t notice. She is too busy greeting dogs that just finished the four-kilometer lake loop. 

                 All the beauty that surrounds Juneau spoils us. But my jaw drops each time I see the Mendenhall Glacier snaking through saw-toothed mountains on its way to the snow-covered lake. I ski toward the glacier for forty minutes while Aki runs back and forth between her other human and me.  The rocky peninsula that separates the lake from the glacier appears to grow in size as we approach. From the spot where we turn back for the trailhead, only a small wedge of fractured ice appears above the rocks. 

             By now Aki and I are almost too warm. She chases forward to catch her other human who is flying forward on skate skis. I slip into the meditative motion of Nordic skiing. 

Ice

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Three college-aged folk just stepped onto the lake ice. They shuffle their feet to test for cracks. When reassured by silence, they start the 1.2-mile walk the face of Mendenhall Glacier. I am tempted to follow them. Our recent stint of cold weather set up the ice nicely for walking. Then there’s the patch of dark blue ice that might be the opening to a crevasse.  But we still swing away from lake and take the trail to Nugget Falls. 

            While our spell of cold weather opened up the lake to walking, it made the falls trail treacherous. My cleats provide sufficient purchase on the icy trail for progress. Aki finds better going on the crusty snow that lines the trail. I’d punch through if I tried that trick. 

The little dog waits for me at stream crossings where a thin sheet of water covers the ice. She knows not to let her feet get wet in freezing weather. I lift her with one hand and ferry her to the other side of each creek. She trots ahead scouting out possible dangers. She wants me forewarned. 

The falls have been quieted by cold. Water flows over and under an ice fantasy that will continue to grow until true cold weather silences the creek. The ice shell makes it possible for us to walk right up to a spot normally swept by thick snakes of water. I turn to see whether Aki appreciates this rare chance. Rather than nosing the wonder with the tip of her muzzle, the poodle-mix is ten feet away, huddling in a nest of glacial granite. 

First Light

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Because there is no wind and the temperature has stayed above zero, I brought Aki back to the Fish Creek Delta. Ice still covers the trail so the little dog and I slip and slip on the trail to the pond. The ice layer on the pond is healing after the last thaw.  A layer so thin it is transparent already covers all recently opened water.

            My right index finger burns when I depress the camera shutter button. I wish the sun could hurry its climb up the backside of the ridge that blocks it light. The little dog and I could use a source of heat.

              We will eventually walk in sunlight but it won’t provide much warmth. We will hear several bald eagles but only see one as it flies between a gap in the trees. I will wonder at having the luck to look up at that moment in time to see the eagle. Then I will question whether I wasted my luck on such a far away view of the predator.   

Changes in Attitudes

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Ravens flocked to Chicken Ridge this morning, drawn by a neighbor’s carelessly secured garbage bin. The messy eaters pierced plastic trash bags with their beaks and tossed kitchen waste everywhere in search for things rich in fat or protein. They ignored the vegetables. 

            No ravens greet Aki and I when we arrive at Skater’s Cabin. The song of a winter bird, perhaps a red poll, drifted across the ice of Mendenhall Lake. Otherwise it was quiet. No wind blew to knock frost feathers from the lakeside alders. 

            Even through we had the place to ourselves, Aki found plenty of smells to catalogue. While I photographed the glacier and his mountains, the little dog wandered onto the moss-covered floor of a new forest. She reappeared a few minutes later. This pattern repeated itself as we walked along the lake edge to the Mendenhall River. 

Since there was no chance that Aki could wander into a road or be carried off by eagles, I didn’t worry. But I still wonder at the meaning of her behavior. After 12 years of walks, is she looking to assert more independence? Or has she finally learned to trust my judgment. Until recently, she always acted like a careful nanny watching over a flighty three-year-old. 

All About the Light

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Like a logger descending a spar tree the temperature has been slowing moving downward since early morning. If Aki and I had taken this walk last evening, the little dog would have splashed through the trailside puddles. We could have driven to the trailhead without concern about black ice on the road. This morning, I could feel the car float over newly formed ice. 

            The trail mud is firming up but it is still wet enough to cause Aki to detour around it. We are heading toward the Fish Creel delta just after the crest of a 17-foot high tide. When we left the car, water still blocked part of the trail. But it will have exposed a narrow path by the time we reach the tip of the small island that marks the mouth of Fish Creek. 

            We will see eagles and a handful of ducks. But the sunlit mountains will grab my attention. At one o’clock in the afternoon, they will be made impossibly white by end-of-day sunlight. Their silhouettes will cut a rugged line in the azure sky. Calm water at their base will double the scene.

   All this sun washed beauty will quickly give way to dusk but not before the mountains and encroaching clouds reflect the pink colors of sunset.