Ice caves!

We've had a loooong stretch of really sunny, cold weather here, but it's slated to end tomorrow.  While I'm happy for warmer temperatures to return, it'll be sad to see snow (forecasted for Friday and Saturday) and rain return.  Though rain should temper some of this ridiculous dust that's everywhere now...

Given that it's been so cold for so long, it seemed like a great chance to hike out to the ice caves.  You can get there via overland trails/bushwhacking in summer or winter, but in winter when Mendenhall Lake is frozen over (like it is now) you can take a major shortcut across the lake.  I'm not sure how long the overland hike takes (maybe 3 hours each way?) but it's common to get lost because there's not actually a trail for the last half.  The lake way, however, took only 30 minutes each way (to the glacier face) and since it's been so nice for so long, there's practically a highway of trampled snow leading right to the caves.  That's also good because walking on or near the glacier can be dangerous when there's fresh snow or melting snow - lots of sink holes and crevasses!

Walking across the frozen lake to Mendenhall Glacier

First, let me say it was amazing.  Simply beyond words.  Second, OMG is was COLD outside.  When we left the parking lot, it was -3 outside, fortunately no wind.  By the time the sun took the lake out of shadow, it was warmer (maybe 10 F?) and finally on our trip back it was 25-30 F. 

This (below) is the face of the left side of the glacier.  That's were you approach to see the ice caves because the right side is very steep and not easily climable.  The glacier is still advancing and calving, even in winter, thus the ice heaves in front of it.

This picture was taken just behind the face of the glacier. You can see one small cave in the middle.  Standing back here you hear nearly constant pops and groans and cracking and splashing of water.  It's such a dynamic landscape, and kind of creepy sounding!  Occasionally you hear loud, low booms, which are either the lake ice cracking or the glacier cracking. 

You need to hike farther up the left flank (on the glacier) for a ways before you come to a huge ice cave carved out of the side of the glacier.  We saw several huge sinkholes on the glacier - 8-10 feet across and you couldn't see the bottom, not that I was actually close enough to the edge to look all the way down. 

I got down to the cave before part of our group and I'm glad I did, because I was able to take this picture to provide some perspective about the sheer size of the cave.  Yes, we walked across the cave, not actually knowing we were on top of it. It was huge.  I'll admit that I have no idea how the caves form or how long they last (or how fast they change). We explored the inside a bit, I didn't go back as far as some in the group (*cough* Steve). 

Steve, peering into the mouth of the cave.

The farther back you go into the cave, the more intense the color of the ice was.  We had left the parking lot of the glacier visitor center at 9 am, and we had the cave to ourselves.  It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen, I'm so glad we made the trek out to it.  It's hard to see from these pictures, but the floor of the cave is covered in a super-fine powdery dust.  It's ground up rock created by the glacier, and it's a light greyish color.  I finally understand why glacier-fed rivers are such a milky color...they're laden with this fine sediment!

I'll post some more pictures on facebook, if you are interested in seeing more.  If we're not facebook friends, we probably should be!