Weather: 

Morning- Cool but nice and sunny warming quickly (lower 60 degrees)
Afternoon- Clouding over with showers
Evening- Pouring rain.

 

  Journal Entry:

We woke up a little later than normal and spent a leisurely morning at camp. We tried to cook blueberry pancakes. It seemed like a three person job and we only had two people. What a mess. The stove was finicky, the pan slipped out of Christina's hand and spilled mix everywhere, and she burned her hand. Like I said, a mess but with a little peanut butter they were pretty good. We also had a chance to bathe for the first time in several days. The water was freezing but we were able to get a whole body wash. That felt, and smelled, good.

 

We set off on our hike to the glacier around 10 AM or 11 AM to see the glacier. The hiking was good along a dry tundra area near the river bed and we had great views of the surrounding mountains and lots of waterfalls. Also, the cliffs came right down near the Toklat River.  We saw another Harrier and lots of  Arctic Ground Squirrels. 

 

We found a great spot for lunch on a large rock outcropping with a great view of the mountains across the valley.  We were getting bored with the same old lunch so we tried something new, peanut butter and GORP (mixed nuts, mixed dried fruits, and M&Ms) sandwich. Yummy!

Back on the trail, we came to a spot where we had to cross the river but could find no spots where the river was crossable. So, once again we were forced up a cliff. We found a wide game trail (6 inches wide), which was a little scary because it was about 60 feet above the river but was smooth and turned out to be some of the best walking we had encountered so far. 

We came to a fork in the river where we rested under a great waterfall. To our left, the river wound it's way up to a glacier. To the right, the direction that we wanted to go in was the larger glacier we had come so far to see. We had to cross and we found a good river crossing. After putting on our Tevas, we crossed the shallow but cold, fast running river. On the other side we put back on our boots and headed up the valley to get to the glaciers. In this valley, there was tons of Dall sheep (25 or more). On the right were 6 mother Dall sheep with their baby sheep close to the river. We located some sheep scat and were amazed the amount of hair in it.  We guessed that hair came from grooming themselves

Soon, we began to see the signs of the large glacier. First, we saw the glacial erratics. These were large stones that were left as the glacier shrunk.  Next, we began to see these walls on either side of the valley of large gravel. These rocks were mainly orange and made it appear like we were on the surface of an alien planet.  We had to cross the river again and after a lot of time looking for a good crossing point and not finding one I carried Christina across. She hopped on my back and I carried her across 3 braids of the river. It was very cold, coming straight from the glacier. Then, we climbed up onto a huge wall of the gravely rock. We did not know why the rock had piled so like this but on the far side we found out. We were actually on a part of the glacier. This was gravel that had been pushed up or eroded and fallen on top of the glacier. 

The glacier was an amazing but scary place full of ice, rocks, and waterfalls.  First, we had heard a lot about crevices, or deep holes on the glacier and were afraid we might fall into one. Second, there was a constant creaking noises and booming noise, sort of like thunder, coming from the glacier. Third, the rivers were roaring out of the glacier and carving underneath the glacier that we felt could cave in. Finally, it was just huge.

We found a huge ice cave that we went into. This cave was about 30 feet tall, 60 feet wide, and 20 feet deep.  It was scary but amazing. You could see layer upon layer, upon layer of ice and I knew that it just went 100s, even 1000s, of feet deeper. We explored further marveling at the size of the glacier (Matt at Glacier) (Christina at Glacier).  When we wanted to leave we could find no easy way back and the river in front of us was raging. We decided to go up and over the glacier. We spied our a route over an ice bridge that would lead us over some ice caves and a raging river.  The climb was high and very scary. We knew if we fell we might be in deep trouble. Then, Christina did fall and slid a few feet before stopping. This was by far the scariest part of our trip so far but she was all right. Finally, we were able to get down off this scary part of the glacier.

As we walked along this arm of the glacier towards home it started to rain and the wind picked up. Walking along and looking down to watch our step, I began to see the vast array of different rocks and different types of erosion on these rocks.


The river up ahead came close to this side so we wanted to try to stay high to get above it. When we came to the spot where the river came in close to this side of the valley we once again had to climb high up the side of a cliff. Not bad, we were getting used to it and it was nice not to have to cross the river. The walking on this side of the river was good and we started to make some time. We were on the other side of the river and knew we were going to cross at some point so we kept our eyes out for a great crossing. We finally found a spot that was very braided and we crossed by jumping from rock to rock. I thought we were home free but Christina mentioned that she thought there was more to come. There was and we had to put on the Tevas and cross again. Freezing cold!!!

We survived and began to make our way quickly home making good time. Along the way it started to rain and we were talking about drinking hot chocolate and eating a good hot meal. By the time that we got to the tent it was pouring rain. UGH!!! Even though it was raining we still wanted a hot meal so we got the stove out but could not light it because our "waterproof" matches were not waterproof. So, we could not get the stove going. We were grumpy and headed back for the tent with pepperoni, cheese, and carrots. Not what we were looking for but still filling. Warm and dry in our tent as it quickly got dark we drifted off to sleep. Another great day in Denali National Park!!!