Winter & Dad are Here!

Mendenhall Glacier

The fall was quite tough with the never ending rain.  I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through another few months until the dryer season arrives in March.  However, this past Monday, we got 16" of snow and Juneau is now a winter wonderland.  The scenery has drastically improved with snow everywhere.  All of sudden everything is looking up.  This means trails will soon be snow covered and not muddy from the rain.  I can try out the snowshoe that I just ordered!  The slopes will also open in a week's time so that is also something to look forward to.  The downside of all of this snow though, is having to dig your car out from under the snow if you don't have a garage.  Oh, and driving in icy conditions isn't too fun either.  However, the main roads have been pretty clear the last few days so it's not a huge deal if I don't have to drive often.  Perhaps if I lived up one of the mountains like many people do, I might have difficulty with my Corolla.

Another bit of news I have is a bit of a switcheroo in the household.  My husband is now back in England for the forseeable future, so my dad decided he is going to come here for the winter to keep me company.  He is retired and seems to have nothing better to do for the winter, so might as well I guess.  He's agreed to take Millie for walks on days I work, and I am really glad for that because I hated walking Millie in the dark.  Ever since day light savings time ended, it has been dark by the time I got off work, and I expect it will be that way until March or so. 

My dad and I haven't been all that close since he was away most of my life.  We get along alright, but we've never spent more than a few days together.  I do know we're both pretty set in our ways.  It'll be a challenge, but I think we'll be ok.  It'll be a good opportunity for us to spend some quality time together.  I plan to drag him out on my days off for walks, snowshoeing, and skiing.  He's looking forward to it all too - the opportunity to be outdoors and get fit.  Today is day 1 of 134 days together.

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

Mendenhall Glacier in the Winter

Probably the most popular attraction in Juneau is the Mendenhall Glacier.  A friend of mine who came with me on the ferry is visiting for the week so I took her and Millie to visit the glacier.  Our plan was to hike one of the trails, but since the lake was iced over, we decided to walk to it before going on a trail.  Unfortunately, I completely underestimated the distance across the lake so what I thought was going to be a one hour round-trip ended up being like a 3 hour ordeal.  My friend didn't complain but I think she might have been cursing me inside.  It was a bit tough trudging through the snow without much of a trail.  Needless to say, we didn't bother with any of the actual trails. 

Maybe because it's midweek & winter, there weren't too many people there.  We saw couple other people returning as we headed out, and that was about it.  Most people remained close to the visitors center.  Since there was no one around nearby, I was able to let Millie off-leash and run around.  She got a really good exercise that day hopping through the powder. 

Once I got near the glacier, I could see a small waterfall coming down the glacier.  The surface also looked cracked where past footprints ended.  Unfortunately that meant that the water near the glacier might perhaps not be so solid, so we didn't get right up to the face of the glacier.  We got a pretty good view of it though from where we did get to. 

The visitors center had a lot of good information on the glacier and the surrounding mountains.  Forgot to get a trail map though.  I suspect I'll be hitting a lot of the trails in that area once all the snow melts.