Yesterday started out clear and cold. The temp here at the Chalet was -11, and -6 (without the wind chill) up on the Pass. After discussions of skiing something up high and debate about possible winds, I wasn't exactly stoked to get out there. When Matt said "We could always go to town," my eyes lit up. I had visions of lunch and maybe going to the museum. First they laughed at me, then they explained that there was good skiing right around town that was more likely to be windless and/or in the sun.

We settled on the Valdez Glacier (our pics, summer aerial view of the glacier from USGS, interesting history) and with sun, almost no wind, and great glacier exploration, it definitely beat a day in town the way I was expecting. Most of the road to the glacier was plowed, enabling acess to the shooting range where we parked. We started our tour to the fanfare of late-morning gunfire. It was pretty cold getting moving, but once we got in the sun, it was fantastic. We toured across the lake at the glacier's outfall, weaving around and over what must be iceburgs in the summer. We poked around on top of the glacier for a bit - first tracks of the season on the glacier unless you count the goat that had been there earlier in the morning. Things were fairly windblown and crusty, so we decided to go poke around the ice caves on the lake. The Valdez Glacier is a big one, stretching about 30 miles back into the valley. Matt said it's retreated quite a bit in the last 10 years or so - he remembers when the glacier still filled the entire lake/iceburg area we were exploring.

We found some really nice little ice caves, and one we could ski all the way through. We were amazed at how smooth and polished the ice was inside (ice pictures). When we started to lose the light we decided to head in before it got too much colder. On the way out, we saw one lone willow ptarmigan, hanging out looking for seeds on the ice. He was lucky he didn't run into the hunters we ran into later on the trail - turns out it's open season on ptarmigan all winter long in AK (who knew?). Alltogether, it was a really spectacular day out on the glacier.

Today is even colder up on the Pass plus a stiff breeze, so Matt and Trev were "heading to town" to try and make some more sheltered turns. As for me, I might head for the museum.

Labels: Alaska