Byron Glacier

Even when Andrew wants to stay at home and relax on the weekend I have a hard time doing so knowing that our sunny/non-freezing time is limited. It probably gets on his nerves seeing me pace like a tiger in front of the southern-facing windows, and by Sunday he's agreed to do something, anything, with me.

Bryon Glacier had been on our to-do list anyway. Heh.

 

The hike had wildflowers on both sides the whole way up. I'm going to do an entire post on the wildflowers later because it really is something special. . .

 

We were curious about this hike because people kept talking about how neat it was to get so close to a glacier. But their pictures would be of them standing on what looked like a snowfield with the glacier right behind them. We could not figure out why hikers would not just go a few extra hundred yards past the snowfield and touch the real glacier.

 

 

And once we got there we figured it out. When you take your picture close to the Byron Glacier (like those people above) it looks just like a snowfield. And because of perspective, it looks like the "real" glacier in the background is much closer than it actually is. It's actually very, very far away and would be one heck of a tiring climb.

 

Luckily there's no reason to do it. There's a pretty awesome glacier to explore underfoot.

 



You have to wade through the fast-moving, ice-cold streams to get to the best parts of the glacier.

Want to make your feet really mad at you? We'd wade through one ice water stream and then wait for our feet to stop hurting before we went through the next one. It was when the water starting coming up to my knees that I'd start making high-pitched, strangly noises. It was COLD.

This part of the glacier was the hardest to access but well worth it. We were being conscious of safety which is good since the melting glacier dropped a rock just a few feet away from us at one point. There was a cave further in where a stream was coming out but was too dangerous to explore or photograph. The warm wind coming down through it felt pretty eerie.

Short fireweed looking away from Byron Glacier and towards Portage Lake.

The girls found a small, dead fish in a puddle in one of the parking lots of the Portage Lake Visitors Center. I know it was probably dropped there by a bird but I prefer imagining it grew up in the puddle until the summer sun started evaporating it's home.

Iceberg in Portage Lake.