The snow seems to have vanished from the glacial moraine, uncovering dead grass, bare blueberry bushes, bones, and a scattering of feathers. Aki finds the feathers fascinating. The bird that sported them must have died near winter’s end. The little dog rarely shows an interest in old feathers. 

            The lake is now ice free, if you don’t count icebergs recently calved by the glacier. Some sail like boats across the lake. Most have come to rest in the shallows. Most look white after escaping from the glacier. The older ones crystalize into super-clear ice. Then, they melt away.

            I wish Aki had the patience for kayaking. If she did, I’d be on the lake right now, making the long paddle to the glacier’s foot. After beaching the boat, the little dog and I would look for translucent-blue caves in the melting ice. I usually make such a visit in early May, before the cruise ship tourists arrive. 

This year, cruise ships will not their usual disgorge their usual million tourists onto the Juneau docks. They have cancelled all sailings to Alaska. Aki, the other locals and I will have the moraine to ourselves. I’ll have the pick of summer days to paddle out the great river of ice. 

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.