East & West Glacier Trails

View of Mendenhall Glacier from behind the Visitor's Center

There are several hiking trails near the Mendenhall Glacier.  Last week we did the East Glacier Trail and today we did the West Glacier Trail.  Both are really nice trails worth doing.

The East Glacier Trail starts behind the visitors center and starts on the Trail of Times.  It's about a 3.5 mile loop trail, with moderate elevation gain.  The trail is mostly in the forest, but there are occasional clearings to give you a glimpse of the glacier from higher up.  A small waterfall, the AJ waterfall, is also a short walk from the trail.

The West Glacier Trail starts at the end of the road just past the campground.  This is about 3.5 miles one way (7 miles r/t) with 1500 feet elevation gain.  The trail is through forest also, with some creeks and small waterfalls along the way.  There are many viewing spots along the way, and the views get better and better as you get higher up.  Toward the end of the trail there's quite a bit of rock scrambling though, and it can be a bit of a challenge.  We had couple of pups with us that kept wrestling with each other the whole way up.  There were several times they got close to the edge of a steep drop off and had me a bit nervous.  You really don't want your dogs to be playing tug of war with a stick on these rocks.... 

Once at the top there's a rock outcrop with a fantastic view of the Juneau icefields - definitely worth the hike.  From there, you can see people trekking on the icefields.  We also saw a few helicopters who touched down on the glacier for about 20 minutes while their passengers walked around a bit.  They probably paid few hundred bucks for their tour.  Our hike was free.  There was also a yellow igloo like structure towards the left hand side of the icefield.  That may have been the dog camp where people can go dog sledding as part of a tour. 

The rock outcrop made for a great place to have lunch.  It's definitely the best view of the glaciers I've had so far here.  Unfortunately, the sky looked a bit ominous and we decided to turn around to avoid rock scrambling in the rain.  I think if we kept going a bit further though, we could actually touch the glacier.  It's not really wise to go near the face of a glacier since it could break off, but it would be cool to get a bit closer.  Perhaps next time.  Even as it stands though, this ranks high up there on my favorite hikes in Juneau.

View of Juneau Icefields from the West Glacier Trail