2 trips to Alaska, BOTH times marathoning played second fiddle.

2013: ice-climbed Matanuska Glacier (100 miles north of Anchorage).  5 years later: canoeing/crampon-hiking Mendenhall Glacier (easy 20 minutes outside Juneau).  FAAANNNNTASTIC!  Booked today’s Ice Adventure Tour 2 months before leaving Colorado.  Probably not the best pre-race prep, but ya’ll know from my hike pics – I don’t shy away from glaciers, snow or high altitude.

Today’s itinerary: Canoe 2+ miles ‘cross glacier-fed Mendenhall Lake, roaring waterfalls/tree-surrounded by Tongass National Forest (wildlife eye-candy), then crampon-hike over blue primeval ice.  Sign me up!  Adventure Day!

Every year we see a wide variety of glacial features come and go.  This year guests have witnessed and posted photos on everything from ice caves to the very rare site of icebergs calving into the lake.  However sights like these are NOT an everyday occurrence, AND CANNOT BE GUARANTEED.  Mother nature does what it wants, when it wants.

 

On every tour, you get the chance to canoe through a glacier lake, hike beside, and even onto the glacier ice itself.  The Mendenhall Glacier is constantly flowing and the landscape is always changing.  For this reason, we have expertly trained guides who assess the glacier’s movements and continually make new routes to show our guests the best of what the glacier has to offer on every tour on that given day!

Met up with Liquid Alaska Tours at the Tramway, close quarter-mile walk from my hotel digs.  Quick 20 minute van ride to our launch north of Juneau.  BALD EAGLES EVERYWHERE.  Counted 6 on light posts surrounding Juneau’s Macaulay Salmon Hatchery.  As local salmon swim upstream/return to spawn thru Gastineau Bay, birds & bears are awaiting.  DINNER 😊

Do’s & don’ts speech, life jacket – and paddle.  10 long strokes, break.  10 more strokes & break.  2 ½ miles across Mendenhall Lake.  Outside, active, super FUN – LOVED canoeing across a glacial lake in Alaska.  That said, lot more strenuous than running 2 ½ miles (different muscles I guess).  Guides were kinda task masters ‘bout the paddling.  Faster we reach the glacier, more time we have to adventure.  Aye aye, Captain.  Got it.  As luck would have it, both were native Coloradans.  Alamosa & Pagosa Springs.  Small world.

Shored our craft left of the HUGE retreating glacier.  Group-carried the boat several feet inland; boulder-propped, secure.  No soul wants to hike return & find their only transport home floating away in 40-degree (iceberg-drifting) water.  Nope, not me.

Crampon fitted.  Permafrost & ancient ice ahead.  Glacier hike.  No ice cave spelunking this season.  Caves formed/existed but none strong enough to support human weight.  Amazing visuals though.  Absolutely nothing disappointing ‘bout this day’s journey.

Silt-littered white, primeval BLUES, killer crevasses, pools of glacial water 200ft deep.  Two HUNDRED feet deep.

Tonite, I’ll be glacier dreamin’.  Mendenhall ❄️😴❄️