Just 12 miles outside of downtown Juneau, the Mendenhall Glacier is an amazing recreation area right near the capital of Alaska. The glacier itself is a 12-mile-long sheet of long frozen snow that is slowly slipping down the hillside. A day spent hiking on the glacier can be terrifying and thrilling as glaciers are unpredictable and conditions are constantly changing. Despite the dangers, many adventurers brave the elements to find a rare and beautiful ice cave.
Ice caves are carved out of the glacier when fresh water finds its way through the compacted glacial snow. The Mendenhall Glacier ice caves are so magical, you won’t believe your eyes. The deep blue light reflects off of a thousand glittering surfaces to create an environment like no other on Earth.
The Mendenhall Glacier is 12 miles long. It was created along with 38 other glaciers in an area known as the Juneau Icefield. Glaciers are formed when the annual snowfall exceeds the summer snow melt, as was the case here from 3000 years ago until the mid-1700's. A glacier is essentially compacted, frozen layers of snow.
The Mendenhall Glacier is slowly sliding down the 13 mile slope to Mendenhall Lake. Glaciers are always changing due to the constant melting and freezing conditions in the area. Cracks appear and crevasses form with little warning. It is an extremely unstable environment, but an incredible example of the forces of nature.
Mendenhall Glacier is one of the 616 officially named glaciers in Alaska. The ice caves are part of the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area in the Tongass National Forest.
Hiking to ice caves is extremely treacherous. Trekking across ground scraped bare by a glacier's path, then over ice fields with changing conditions, crevasses and thinning ice. Alternately, you can paddle on treacherous, icy waters and hike along the shore where the glaciers are calving, or losing chunks into the sea. State Troopers report Mendenhall Glacier as the place with the most emergency rescues in the area.
The journey will be worth all the trouble when you arrive at an ice cave. Every type of water surrounds you from ice to stream to mist to snow to water vapor hanging high in the air.
Ice caves are formed as water flows through the glacier and melts out a passageway in the ice. Water pours in at a moulin, or a hole in the surface of a glacier, and flows through until it finds it's way out. There are ice caves all over glaciers, but some are more accessible in size and location than others.
Some creatures actually call glacier ice home. Ice worms, or annelid worms, live inside glacier ice. Several species of insects and algae live on the surfaces of glaciers as well.
Glacial ice looks so blue because the particular makeup of it absorbs all colors of the visible light spectrum except blue. The same is true for snow, although with a snow flake, the light is too refracted to see the blue. The inside of an igloo, a temporary shelter made of snow, will glow with the same blue hue.
A glaciospeleologist is the name for someone who specializes in exploring ice caves. Scientists continue to study ice caves, their specialized environment, and the unique plant and animal life that live inside them.
The Mendenhall Glacier has been slowly melting since the mid-1700s when the snow fall stopped exceeding the snowmelt each summer. Some of the incredible caves have experienced partial collapse in recent years, but new ones have found popularity. As long as there are glaciers in Alaska, you'll be able to find ice caves inside them.
Mendenhall Glacier and the ice caves inside it are constantly in flux due to changing glacial conditions. Check with the USDA Forest Service here to find out the latest on ice cave conditions.
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