A Hidden Natural Wonder

I can now mark "Be inside of a glacier," off of my bucket list...maybe I should put it there first.  Despite not initially being on my list of things to do before I die, it was still one of the coolest things I've done ("cool" meaning awesome and literally cool).

Fridays are our only days off, typically; thus, Fridays are our adventures days.

Last Friday, we decided to hike to the ice caves inside of the Mendenhall Glacier.

Side note from a tour guide:  Gold was discovered in 1880 by Joe Juneau, Richard Harris, and a Tlingit chief.  The mining business in the area boomed right after the discovery, making way for another form of business to come in, tourism.  The first cruise ship to Juneau came into port in 1881, just one year after the discovery of gold.  The tourists of that ship wanted to see the mining town--which was mostly just tents and dirty men--and also the Mendenhall Glacier.  It's been a big tourist spot since the beginning. (Disclaimer:  Yet another bit of information received from a somewhat reliable coworker source.  If it's wrong in any way, it's not my fault.)

In order to get to the glacier caves, we had to hike for quite a while, probably a couple of hours.  It began as a really easy path that seemed more like a walking path through the woods on the west side of the glacier.

Handsome Hubby

One of many small streams we crossed over.

Soon, though, it felt like we were climbing a mountain rather than hiking a trail.

At one point of the trail, there's a rope attached to the top of a boulder that's probably around ten feet tall.  The rope has knots in it so that hikers can scale to the top of the boulder where the trail continues.  When we reached the peaks of the trail we were always rewarded with breathtaking view of the Mendenhall Valley and the mountains that surround it.

Just 20 years ago, the glacier covered that waterfall.

We eventually found our way to the glacier.  

By this point, I wasn't the most pleasant person to be around. The area has at least 13 bears (more now that they're having cubs), so absolutely no food is allowed.  Unfortunately for Eric, I hadn't eaten much that morning, and I couldn't fix my mood with a quick snack since it wasn't allowed on the trail. On top of that, it was sprinkling for most of the time, making it very hard to climb up and down the many boulders on the trail (especially for an accident-prone, clumsy person like me).  But once we made it to the cave found at the side of the Mendenhall Glacier, my mood brightened.  

Before reaching it, we passed by hikers who were coming back from it.  They said the cave was "so worth it," "crazy," and "breathtaking."

How many people can say they've walked on top of a glacier?  How many people can say that they've walked on top of a glacier on their way to the inside of a glacier?  It's mind-blowing how many crazy, unheard of things you can do here.

And finally, here are photos of the inside of the glacier...

Behold!  *cue "oohs" and "ahhs"*

This guy somehow puts up with me. :)

The ice of the Mendenhall Glacier is blue because of it's incredibly thick composition.  All colors of light pass through it except blue.  Thus, it's blue.

The stream that flows inside of the cave.

At the back of the cave is a huge gaping hole in the ceiling that allows light in.  Makes for awesome pictures.

I mentioned earlier that there were a lot of rocks and boulders we had to walk and climb on during the trail.  Because of this, the trail isn't well-defined for a good portion of the hike, especially the part of the trail closer to the glacier.  So...we got lost.  We were wandering around for an hour or so, following what looked like trails but ended up being dead ends.  

At one point, we saw that a lot of the trees had these orange ties on them that hikers before us had used to mark their paths.  As we followed them, going from one marked tree to another, Eric said, "Maybe you can make a gospel reference to this and use it in your next talk."  He was saying it in more of a joking way, but I was thinking, "Yeah!  Something positive can come out of this.  Here's to my next talk about following the guidance of the prophet or the promptings of the Holy Ghost."  However, as we followed the orange ties, we were led to yet another dead end, what seemed to be a repelling cliff.  We had been following the wrong ties set by climbers and not glacier hikers.  

One of the little buggers that got us lost.

I'm sure there's some moral in this story that can be tied to gospel principles, and maybe you can enlighten us of it, but the moral we thought we were approaching ended up at a dead end.

After a while more of wandering, a little more of thrashing through trees, and a bit of consulting my phone's GPS, we found the familiar path we had taken to the glacier.  

At the moment of being lost, it was nothing but frustrating, but in retrospect, it was actually kind of fun.  According to Eric, being lost in the middle of the woods and somehow finding our way back on our own feels more like an adventure than anything else.

Thank goodness for modern technology, and thank goodness for my adventure buddy who is able to stay upbeat in tough situations.