WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, JULY 3 & 4

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, JULY 3 & 4:   

     Days at the Mendenhall Glacier!  To write this almost seems surreal – a place you’ve heard of for years, and now you’re really there!  Yesterday we drove over in the early afternoon, after trying to wait out the clouds, rain, and mist. (the glacier is only about 3 miles from our RV Park) and had out first look.  Spent time in the wonderful Visitors Center.   But it soon began to rain really hard, and blocked all views, so we gave up and came home.

     Went again today, earlier in the day, even though chilly, overcast and very cloudy, and threatening rain.  But it never did rain, and occasionally the sun even tried to peep out, so consequently we had clearer views of the glacier today than yesterday.  Was amazing looking through the telescopes in the Visitors Center, or thru our binoculars, at the ice close up.

 

 

 

    Went on a couple of really nice little hikes down below the Visitors Center – the  longer one to Nugget Falls.  The noise from this beautiful waterfall crashing into the lake below overpowers any

other nearby noise!  

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only a few years ago, this waterfall wasn’t visible– it was actually under the ice. But as the ice has been receding, the waterfall has been revealed. The Visitors Center and other exhibits throughout the area do a great job of tracking the glacier ice over time in ways like this – showing where the ice was x many years ago, what new land forms began to show, and in what years, as the glacier has constantly been receding for the past 300 years or so.

      These were delightful hikes – walks, really –despite the chill, we just took our time, taking some detours down to a couple of beaches.

 

 

                                                Views of  Visitors Center, and looking down from it:

 

 

 

      As our backs were turned to the lake, we suddenly heard a tremendous crash – we knew that sound!  An iceberg calving!   Turned around, just in time to see the tail end of a section of an iceberg falling off and hitting the water. 

The piece to the left was upright and attached to the larger iceberg a minute ago!

      We were told that, because Mendenhall is in a lake valley, there isn’t nearly as much calving as in a tidewater glacier (one that empties into the sea), due to no tide fluctuations and disturbances.  We saw for ourselves - there were only a few icebergs floating in the lake by the glacier, whereas at the tidewater  LeConte Glacier, the saltwater as full of them!

     After resting a big and talking to some rangers (always so interesting!), we set out on a more ambitious hike.  This East Glacier Loop  was a 3.5 mile hike – much more strenuous than what we did this morning.  Reminiscent of our hikes last summer in the Colorado Rockies.  Gained several hundred feet in elevation, and gave us some different views & perspectives of Mendenhall. 

Fun to see Nugget Waterfall cascading down from up high.  Could hear the torrential sound start from way up here.

                                                            

We also passed several small, sheer waterfalls.  Very, very pretty in the rainforest. 

 

     Bill’s knees only gave him trouble in the last third of this hike – going downhill over some steep, very crooked terrain.  This was the first really demanding hike that we’ve done on this trip.  Was good to stretch ourselves . . . we’ll see tomorrow how B’s one knee is after a night of recuperation (and a few glasses of wine!). 

     Even with his discomfort, over dinner we agreed that this was a really good day – were able to be physically active, we adjusted to the cool weather, and saw some wonderful sights.  And for dinner, we grilled the prawns we’d purchased earlier in Sitka.  Delicious!!  We need to pick up some more!

     Oh yes, this is the 4^th of July!  Didn’t seem like it.  The city of Juneau has their big fireworks display downtown at midnight on the 3^rd – or I guess it’s at 12:01 a.m. on the 4^th.  They have it so late because it’s not dark til then!  But we didn’t go – too chilly, rainy, and late for us old codgers.  There were several things going on in town today – the 4^th is a big deal here, partly because July 4 is when Alaska was admitted to the Union.  But, because the weather was iffy, we opted to go to the glacier instead, and had our own natural display of nature there!