May 11 2008
On to the glacier (but closer)
On Saturday it was fifty degrees outside, and a rain-free overcast, which is perfect for hiking and braving steep trails, such as the West Glacier Trail.
After trying to actually attend to some work, I had to give up since I had to “do” this particular trail as soon as possible - summer has begun and a good weekend can’t be wasted. Even though I have about 3.5 months left, time is running out if I count all the places I’d like to see - Haines, Sitka, Skagway, Denali, Barrow, and the Bering Sea.
One thing that I am sure most cruise ship visitors don’t know is that you can get right next to the Mendenhall Glacier. You can do whatever you want once you are there: come up to it and pet it, lick it, sniff it, or even get into an ice cave and kill yourself instantly by collapsing ice.
Getting to the glass is not so obvious, however - it’s an unofficial branch of the West Trail that is marked but has no signs giving out its destination. It’s just a trail. Somewhere. I had to dig up this info on the Web, and know that it’s a hidden trail near the first rest stop. Duh. Of course. I knew that.
This time I used my GPS logger from the second I left the house, so I present to you - my exact route, including the bus line.
A few notes about it: the device logs more waypoints when I am on foot, while bus waypoints are pretty sporadic (it can’t get a good lock inside a vehicle). The seldom waypoints get connected by a straight line, giving an approximation of my route.
If mountain goats were anywhere steeper, they’d be flying….
While a logged location may be off somewhat, more points provide for a better picture. You can see that, according to the map, I walked on the glacier itself - but I did not. At that point I was near the glacier but not directly next to it. The satellite imagery is old, so I walked where glass used to be a few years ago. The next time I will get much closer to the glacier, to see how far it really retreated.
This time I didn’t feel like exploring much of it - when I reached for my satellite messenger to send a triumphant cosmic signal of success, I realized that my cellphone took a permanent walk in the rain forests of Alaska. The silver rat bastard jumped belt somewhere, while I was spending time on my all fours climbing to the glacier glass.
Bummer. I had so many things tied to my belt it was difficult to keep track of everything - a sat messenger, foldable knife kit, GPS rescue beacon, and the now gone cellphone. That’s nothing to discourage Crawlmeister, however - I am crawling right back to take a closer look, since this place is positively awesome.
the map with the route you traveled is cool. never seen that before.
There are many uses for it. I can embed location info into images, create a Google route, or get my location in MS Streets and Trips on my laptop, if I am lost. It makes any GPS logger an all-purpose device.