Since a couple of our friends are in town we thought it would be the perfect time to hike out to the ice caves under the Mendenhall glacier. We got on the trail around 10:30 and it took us a little over 2 hours to hike out to the glacier. The trail started off pretty mellow and flat, then continued uphill with a few steep sections, then got super loose and rocky as we made our way down to the glacier ice. The temp dropped a few degrees as we got closer but our blood was pumping so much from the actual hike that it felt wonderful. Once we got to the glacier we walked up the side of it until we found the cave. The cave was ahhhhhmazing! The blue was so beautiful and just the fact that we were underneath the glacier in a cave of super blue ice was almost too much to handle. It's incredible that something of such beauty is only a couple hours hike from Juneau. Just another reason why I love this place so much.
Going into the cave does carry some risk. The cave could collapse at any moment, but as soon as you get to the face of the cave, all the worry goes away and you just HAVE to go in! We walked in a few hundred yards until we got to a waterfall and a huge hole in the ice ceiling above us. You could look up and see the sky, as well as the 30 ft of ice we were under. Water was dripping from the melting ice all over us, but it made the experience even better. I can go on and on about how awesome and beautiful and amazing the ice cave was, but I'll just get to the good stuff... the photos!
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