Glaciers

Discover glaciers up fairly close and personal. The Mendenhall Glacier is 13 miles from downtown Juneau along a paved road. A visitor center there offers spectacular views of both the glacier and the fantastic ice fields feeding it.

A boat ride from Petersburg or Wrangell may bring you near the face of LeConte or Shakes Glaciers. LeConte Glacier, located about 20 miles east of Petersburg, flows into LeConte Bay and is the southernmost tide-water glacier on the continent. Shakes Glacier, about 30 miles northeast of Wrangell, flows into Shakes Lake and Slough, a tributary to the Stikine River.

Ice from both LeConte and Shakes break from the glaciers and float near the glacier face. Boating too close to the face of a calving glacier is not recommended; calving (breaking off icebergs) is unpredictable and may occur at any time above or below the water surface. An additional note of caution - LeConte is famous for its underwater calving events, which can shoot icebergs, or "shooters" out 500 yards or more from the face of the glacier. These calving events and the waves they produce can be hazardous to boaters. LeConte calves often, continually sending icebergs into a spectacular 10-mile-long glacial fiord. The bay is frequently so full of icebergs that it is difficult to boat to within view of the glacier. Even so, you'll enjoy watching the seals sitting on and swimming around the many icebergs floating in the bay. June is the best month to view seal pups on the ice floes. Shakes Glacier, while beyond the range of most seal habitat, seldom calves enough to block boat access to its ice blue face.

Flightseeing the Stikine Ice Field, which includes both LeConte and Shakes Glaciers, is popular from both Petersburg and Wrangell. There are air taxi operators in both towns. The ice field and glaciers look especially blue from the air on days with a light cloud cover.

Flightseers may spot small markers on LeConte Glacier in the next year or two. The glacier is currently being studied by scientists from the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This research project on the dynamics of a rapidly receding tidewater glacier will occur from 1999 through the end of 2001.

Some ice fields of mainland Southeast Alaska offer exhilarating experiences for the adventurous souls who enjoy skiing and hiking in the ice, snow, and thin air atop the Alaska Coast Range. There are places where you can take a helicopter to the ice fields and ski and hike down to saltwater - a trip not for the faint of heart or body!

Updated March 16, 2001

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