Outdoors at the glacier
Today, we had a full camping day at Mendenhall Glacier.
Greg started the morning with a run, as usual. But first, we have a story about another morning run in bear country. About 2 years ago, we were camping in the town of Telegraph Cove BC, on northern Vancouver Island. On a morning run, Greg saw a large black dog up the road. As he got closer, he realized that was no dog - it was a black bear. Greg walked backwards very, very slowly until he climbed the hill and the bear was no longer visible. Then he ran fast like he used to run when he was much younger!
So for his run this morning, Greg brought a can of bear repellent and ran without earbuds, so that he could pay attention for wildlife. Just a few minutes into his run, Greg heard footsteps behind him. Greg looked behind and saw a large, furry black animal running towards him. Greg screamed, then realized it was an actual large black dog, unlike last time. The dog was running alongside its owner. Good thing it wasn’t an actual bear!
After Greg returned, Amy and Greg went out to kayak on Mendenhall Lake. We launched the kayaks alongside the cruise tours, then we crossed the lake back to Nugget Falls, where we walked yesterday. Thanks to the kayaks, we got a much better view of the waterfalls than we saw from the walking trail. This prompted Greg to say that we got to see the back side of water…
Next, we paddled towards the face of the glacier. When we got close, Greg and Amy remembered that we kayaked here before, on a port excursion from an Alaska cruise in 2001 with Amy’s parents. The temperature got cold as we approached the face of the glacier, and there was more wind. But we got an amazing view of the glacier, with almost no other people.
When it was time to return, Greg couldn’t remember our exact launch location, but we followed one of the canoes from the cruise tours, which led us back to our launch. Greg’s Apple watch reported we paddled over 6 miles, our longest kayak trip of the year, by at least 2x. We were exhausted. But since we had the RV, we had a hot shower waiting when we returned, along with refreshments.
For the evening, we planned to grill dinner over the campfire, followed by s’mores. The US Forest Service campground supplies free firewood. Alas, the free firewood was overpriced: the firewood was wet and didn’t burn. Greg wasted a lot of our kindling trying to start the campfire. At least we have our butane grill.