After untying the ropes and heading down the top of the crevice, Dawn tells us about this cool ice cave she wants to show us. So we head towards the cave. In the background we kept hearing helicopter noise. Then they appear. They come in groups of 4 or 5, land and take off. Turns out those were the helicopter excursions dropping people off, leaving, coming back with more and picking up the second group. They would get dropped off and walk around take a short dog sled ride. All on the flat part of the glacier. That was something I considered before I found this trip.
Dawn told us a story about being stuck on the glacier and having to be rescued. Sometimes the glacier can produce fog, almost like dry ice would. Sometimes it would clear up just as soon as it starts, other times it would continue to get thicker until it’s almost a white out. The later happened to her and a group she was with and had to be rescued via helicopter. That might be the only time I get in a helicopter.
On our way to the cave, we’re hopping over small cravices as we get closer to the edge of the glacier where we’ll get off, remove our crampons, backpacks and leave the ice axes.
The area heading down to the ice cave consisted of lose rocks and gravel, some areas with ice under the gravel. Yep, I did slip a few times which freaked me out because I kept looking at the glacier along the rocky edge area that was about a foot above and very, very dark.Then the ‘cave’ appears.
What in the heck am I doing here?! This is crazy nuts now! There is absolutely no way I’m walking under that ice! Ok, breathe. Just keep breathing. BREATH damn it!. You’re going to be alright.
We walk up to the edge and Woah!. HUGE ‘what ifs’ were swirling around my head big time! The closer we got the larger it became inside. Dawn said down at the bottom there’s this awesome ice tunnel that has shades of blue she’s never seen before, much different than what we saw in the ice tunnel we were in earlier.
I do want to see that blue. I hesitated, and then decided I’d go check it out. I started to walk down with them, until I looked behind me. That’s when I felt I couldn’t breathe anymore. I felt claustrophobic. I asked how far it was, she said at the bottom, then you have to crawl under the ice and it’s over to the left.
The ‘crawl under the ice” part stopped me in my tracks. You can now hear my heart pounding in my chest. “Sorry. I just can’t do this!”
I told Ray I was staying put. The heavy mist that was in the cave was getting to me also. It was just too freaky for me. I handed him my camera and off they went.
While they disappeared into darkness, I honestly started get worried. I’m looking up at this HUGE piece of ice over my head. At any moment it could slip just an inch and they could be trapped. Oh crap! Hyperventilation sets in. And the famous what ifs are moving around. What if they don’t come back! What if that ice collapses. Wait! Collapses? Let me move more to the entrance just in case.
It’s only been a minute but seemed like 10. While they were down there somewhere exploring ‘shades of blue she’s never seen before, much different than what we saw in the ice tunnel we were in earlier’, I started to look around and see things in the ice. It was quite interesting. I found myself calming down a bit while I check out pieces of wood, granite, grass, pieces of things I couldn’t recognize. Wondering how long this stuff has been in this glacier. I took my glove off and felt the ice. It wasn’t really cold, but an unusual smooth feeling, quite different than in the ice tunnel. Not really wet either. Was a little strange.
I noticed a small piece of wood sticking out of the ice and pulled on it. After working it for a bit it came out. Thank goodness that small piece of wood wasn’t holding this thing up! It’s about 5” long. I wondered how old it was. It had a weird shade of green to it. And when it dried it has gold sparkles all over it. Hey, I struck it rich! It is pretty neat. I also pulled a small piece of granite out. Placed them in my pocket and moved more to the entrance.
I heard something and turned around towards the bottom of the cave and saw that the fog becoming much thicker. Ok, now what happened? That fog was getting thicker and I couldn’t see the end. You can only imagine how unsettled I was at that moment. I was afraid to call out to them fearing the vibration of my voice would do something to the ice. I just stood there and waited. As fast as the fog came, it went. It was weird.
Finally Dawn appears. I asked where’s Ray and she said he’s coming. After a minute, Ray appeared.
I didn’t get the chance to set the camera to settings to take pictures in the cave, or maybe I wanted to get out of there as quick as I could and threw the camera at him. I don’t know. But when I went through the shots, it was just gorgeous what he caught.
This is the area they had to climb under to get to the other side of the cave.
And the following shots were what he could get while inside.
Pretty amazing, isn't it? Just gorgeous! ((While I was uploading these shots, I’m really looking at the following picture. I’m not sure if you’ll be able to see this with it being sized for the internet. But you can see a good sized crack going over the top of this arch and some light from the entrance coming through 2 parts of it! I called Ray to come check out this shot. We were both pretty amazed that it didn’t give way while they were down there. I will be informing Dawn about that crack!))
This shot was taken on his way out. That’s Dawn, not me, standing there. I’m more where the light is. Where it’s safe.
And a few more.
Ok, everyone’s safe and it’s back to our equipment, we put them back on and head back on the glacier. We hike up as far as we can safely go. This has been quite the experience, for sure.
We found part of a frozen crevice shaped like a fish. Complete with rock for the eye frozen in the ice.
While we were walking around, my crampons got hooked on each other and I fell and slid, in what seemed like a mile and it was all in very, very slow motion. Flying at warp speed through my mind was a book I read about 6 years when Ray had this wild idea that he wanted to climb Mt. Shasta in California. This particular section talked about what to do if you ever slip, what to do with your feet if you have on crampons and how to use your ice axe to stop. Fortunately my slide wasn’t very far and I caught myself and stopped with one foot out on the edge of the ice. My axe was in the correct position though! I looked down and I was on a frozen over crevice. Ray was behind me, but it was so fast he couldn’t do anything. Dawn was in front of me and all I remember is how fast she jumped out to stop me. Fortunately I didn’t need her assistance. She said to just sit and not move. To relax. ‘Cuz I thought I was a goner. When you slide on those glaciers there is no stopping. Thankfully the crevice was there and I was able to stop. Thankfully it was frozen. She asked where I was bleeding. I said “I’m not bleeding” before I looked down and saw blood all over my pants. I didn’t’ feel anything. We looked around and found a very small cut on my finger from the ice but bleeding good. The colder you are the less the blood will coagulate.
Right before I slipped, Ray asked where my gloves were. I didn’t have them on because my hands were warm. Dawn had turned around getting ready to tell me I should have them on incase I fall my hands won’t get cut up. That ice may be beautiful, but it’s sharp also.
She doctored me up, put a scooby-doo band-aid on and I was ready to go. Yes, that “go”. After a scare like that, you wanna get back on solid ground and get a beer!
Those crampons are tricky to use. You always have to remember to walk like you have a load in your pants. That’s the best way to describe how to do it. Always concentrate on each and every single step and keep your legs apart, especially if you walk with your feet very close together. If you don’t, you end up tangled and a gonner.
So, as we head back to the getting off point, we stop to fill up our water bottles again. We must have filled up 5 times. I want some more of that water!! Dawn grabbed some ice crystals and held them in her hand. It looked like she had a hand full of diamonds, they were just beautiful.
Got a glimpse of the lake while on the glacier.
She also wanted to show us one more ice tunnel she found just a few days ago. I decided to stay put this time. Crampons FIRMLY in the ice. She heads in the tunnel, Ray follows, then she punches her way out the top.
On our way back to land, we see another crevice which looked pretty deep. Dawn picked up a rock and dropped it down. All we heard was tick, tick, ticktick, tick, tick, thug, tick tick, until we couldn’t hear the echo anymore. Ok, I’m now ready to get the hell off this glacier! Heading back to land, I snap one more shot of the edge of the Glacier.
We pack up our backpacks and head on out over some boulders and see one more last look at an amazing sight! Doesn’t even look like you can walk around on that thing, does it?
And we’re back to trekking back over rugged terrain. Remember, the glacier was just here 90 years ago!
One more shot of a stream on our way out.
Dawn was the perfect guide and we highly recommend her and the company. The usual time spent on the Glacier is 2 hours. We were on it for 3 hours. We got back into town around 4:30pm and Dawn dropped us off at her favorite burger place called The Hanger. And the burgers were great. Ray had a Salmon burger and Bison burger and I had the Halibut burger with fries and we both had an Alaskan Amber beer. That is some gooood beer. It’s our new favorite.
We walked ourselves back to the ship, went to our room and crashed for the rest of the night.
The weather held up for us, no rain, but cloudy all day. And that was just fine with me. We’re heading to Skagway, Alaska.
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