West Glacier Hike

Saturday the 13th was an incredibly beautiful day. We did our chores Friday night so that Saturday morning would be free for hiking.

Mr. X has been saying for weeks that he's wanted to see how far the glacier has receded, so we went out to the West Glacier Trail, took the turnoff marked "Unmaintained, hazardous trail" and hiked down to the glacier.

Mr. X decided to turn us up hill, so the glacier would rise to meet us, rather than have us scramble down the scree and back up again.

I took a few steps out on the glacier. That's all the farther I would go, though, without ice climbing gear. The area that we were at was almost slushy, and we could hear and see ice falling off, so really that's all I was interested in.

Knowing that Mr. X's definition of a good time involves bushwacking, I suggested that we head back to the West Glacier trail from our current position rather than doubling back. Mr. X agreed and we started scrambling through the small brush, up the side of the mountain, using a stream for our navigation.

After 45 minutes we were ready to sit down and take a break before heading into the second half of our scramble through devil's club and Sitka spruce. I looked around and said, "isn't that the trail right there?" Sure enough, it was. We hiked down the trail a way until we came to a look-out where we settled down for a break and looked out over the glistening Mendenhall lake, pounding Nugget Falls and blue glacier.