Tagged With: Glacier

Mendenhall Glacier

Mendenhall Glacier

Mendenhall Glacier

We went to the glacier today. In Juneau, that’s short hand for the Mendenhall, since it’s the one you can basically drive to. When we lived here in the late 1980s the face of the glacier was just a little past Nugget Falls, on the right in this photo. When my mother-in-law lived in Juneau, the face of the glacier was considerably further out into the valley. Like most (but notably not all) glaciers since the last little ice age, roughly between 1300 and the mid to late 1800s, it is receding. It’s still pretty and the clouds separated long enough for us to see some of the mountains around it, at least briefly, although you can’t really see them well in this photo.

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Cathy at the Mendenhall

Cathy at the Mendenhall

Cathy at the Mendenhall

We have a very fond and somewhat funny memory from the winter of 1986-87. It was on a relatively mild day in February when Cathy, Brian, Lisa, and I drove out to the glacier. There was eight to ten inches of snow on the ice on Mendenhall Lake and there were kids sledding on the hills of glacial moraine. Brian, Lisa, and Cathy walked out into the snow on the ice wearing boots and their bathing suits. They took off the boots and settled on a blanket laid on the snow (which naturally sank into the snow when they sat down. I took a handful of photographs of them, pretending it was a lovely day. Actually, for February in Juneau, clear skies make it a lovely day, regardless of the temperature. Anyway, here’s Cathy, 32 years later, in front of the Mendenhall, although she was dressed more warmly today than she was on that day in February.

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