After we checked out of the hotel we headed to Mendenhall Glacier. On the way there we saw several bald eagles. One tree had 5 perched in it and we caught this sweet picture with another flying overhead!
When we got there the visitor center was still closed for the season, but we were able to find the trail map for the East Glacier hike. Before we headed off on our trip we decided to walk down the photo point trail for a quick shot of the glacier in the distance.
While we were down there we had some locals take our flag picture for us.
They talked to us about our flag and our trip for a couple minutes and then gave us a suggestion to take another hike. The hike was called the West Glacier Hike and apparently it takes you right up to the glacier. Its not a trail that the visitor center has on their map or even suggests so we had to do a little googling to find out the route and details. While I did the research, Evan made us one of our MREs to get fueled up for this intense hike. To get right up next to the glacier and back it is about a 7-8 mile roundtrip depending on where you hike to. We weren't really prepared for this hike, but it sounded right up our alley so we went for it!
The beginning of our hike was along the lake below a forested area. We apparently started the trail at the completely wrong spot and we dead ended into a rock peninsula before we realized it. We then had to bushwhack our way through the deep brush and trees to try to find the real trail.
What we just bushwhacked through to get to the real trail!
This is what the trail through the forest looked like.
We continued through the forest, and Evan got to sing his "Bear Song" for the entire time. We weren't entirely prepared for this hike because it was grizzly bear territory and the beginning of their season. Since this wasn't our originally planned hike, we didn't have bear spray. Instead, Evan resorted to singing random words and gibberish for hours so we didn't alarm any bears we may have come upon. I guess it worked because we never saw any bears, but we did see this tree a beaver did some work on!
After finishing the forested part of the hike, we had to hike up and down and up and down the rocky part of the mountains surrounding the glacier. The scenery was just beautiful!
With the intense rocky terrain as our trail, Evan's hiking boots started to die, but that didn't keep us from trekking on! For the last hour the trail vanished and we had to look for cairns to guide us up to the glacier.
We finally had our first resighting of the glacier in the distance, but we still had a 30min hike over more rocky terrain to actually get to it. The view so amazing!
I look like I'm in a scene from "Honey, I shrunk the kids!"
We finally made it to the edge of the glacier after a 2.5 hour hike and to my surprise it was very dirty. Even though the glacier was kind of dirty that didn't change how spectacular it was!
After the initial shock was over, and a million pictures were taken, we made our way down into the glacier. Check out how tiny 6'3" Evan looks next to that massive thing!
View from inside one of the ice caves!
We climbed on, in, down, and around the glacier and just as we were getting ready to leave Evan accidentally flung his camelback mouthpiece into the freezing water of the lake. He refused to leave it behind, so we climbed down a rock wall and I watched in fear as he dangerously tried to save his mouthpiece. After several attempts to reach the mouthpiece by hurling miniature boulders into the water to push it closer, he finally retrieved it. He was so proud!
We climbed back up the rock wall, which I didn't realize was so vertical until then. I almost lost my footing and slid down on top of Evan a few times, but eventually I reached the top and was able to catch this shot to show as blackmail for how he is constantly making me do crazy things!
We soaked in the view for a few more minutes then started the trek back. Once we reached the forest part of the trail again, Evan started with the bear song. I took some shots of the scenery we missed out on due to our earlier detour.
We were almost back to the beginning and we actually saw a lady heading in for a hike and it was then that we realized how ill prepared and lucky we were. She was locked and loaded with a can of bear spray in each hand!! After about 5.5 hours roundtrip we made it to the trailhead where we noticed this warning sign... Would have been nice to read the second bullet at the beginning of the hike... Little too late for that advice, lol! We were happy we made it back without incident, but Evan's hiking boots, the only pair of shoes he brought to Alaska, completely died.
We went to Red Dog Saloon to fuel up and have some celebratory drinks before heading to the airport to wait for our flight. Evan captured this moment of how exhausted I was after the intense day.
Tomorrow is going to be another long day. We fly back to Seattle at 5:30am and then we continue the roadtrip to Olympic National Park.
Lesson of the Day: If you have Evan singing the bear song you will most likely be guaranteed to not see a bear!
Word of the Day: Cairns
Lesson of the Day: If you have Evan singing the bear song you will most likely be guaranteed to not see a bear!
Word of the Day: Cairns