Mendenhall Glacier

We had Wednesday, July 11 on our own before the Mentor Trek started Thursday. It was still raining, so that threw us off a bit as we didn’t know whether to head on out as planned or tweak our itinerary. I’d read about and wanted to photograph a local botanical garden, but we decided to put that off. (We’re hardy people you know, it was just the photo equipment we had to take precautions for!) After taking it easy in the hotel room for the morning and heading out into town for lunch, we decided to pack into our rental car and head “up the road” from downtown Juneau toward Mendenhall Glacier, a part of the Tongass National Forest. A National Forest, Noel would later explain, is only different from a National Park in that they can log in a forest! (Remember, one of my blogging goals is to inform. :) )

I tend to think I’m a fairly well-read and traveled person, but I had never seen a glacier! I guess I hadn’t done my homework either, because I was completely unprepared for the site of it. Huge ice fields coming down from mountains that form a walls where it meets water. Small and large chunks of ice are constantly on the move (although rarely to the naked eye – but I did witness a pretty incredible glacial “event” as they call them, more on that later). We were told (and I now believe them, although at first I was suspect that they were just trying to make us feel better in the rain) that overcast days are actually the best days to view them because they appear “bluer.” I won’t even try to explain why they appear blue, although many people over the course of our near-week long trip did their best to educate me on the science of light rays, etc. I’ll let you Google it if you’re interest is peaked from the pictures!