Treading on Blue Ice

We pulled our 20-foot canoe onto a rocky beach about 100 yards from the western edge of the Mendenhall Glacier. Our tour guide, Above and Beyond Alaska’s Elliott Sofhauser, said this small wedge of beach had been covered with ice just two years ago.

Now, the beach serves as the staging ground for a new kind of “paddle and trek tour.” These start with a paddle across Mendenhall Lake, then a trek under and onto the glacier.

Three tour boats trailed behind us, each full with paddling tourists.

Drawn by pictures and videos of otherworldly-blue, undulating ice ceilings posted on social media, most had come to see the Mendenhall ice caves, a swiftly-changing and treacherous feature carved by streams flowing under the east side of the Mendenhall.

Hector Leon and Viviana Pina, visiting from Mexico City, were inspired by pictures of the ice caves they saw on the internet, so they got up early for a paddle and trek, which gives them the best chance to see the ice caves.

The tour gave them a front row seat to climate change.

“We knew that the glacier is changing, but we didn’t imagine it was changing that much,” Leon said.

“It made us think that we have to be more conscious about what we can do to make a change in everyday life,” Pina said.

Paddle tours combined with a glacier trek wouldn’t have been possible two years ago, but since the glacier has receded, the beach opened up, allowing companies to stage canoes and trek up to the ice caves and the glacier.

ABAK’s permits allow them to bring a maximum of 4,100 people to the ice caves per year. Previous to last summer, when paddle and trek tours became possible, that number was 600, said USFS permitting administrator Jessica Shalkowski.

ABAK Operations Manager Caitlin McElhinny said that because of the popularity of the ice caves, the paddle and trek is now the company’s “bread and butter.”

Interest in the ice caves has grown “exponentially” in the last few years, she said, and ABAK will likely use all 4,100 of those permits before the season is up.

“When I first started, people wanted to ice climb. Now that’s shifted to the ice caves because of the publicity of it,” McElhinny said. In just the last few years, McElhinny said the company has hosted national media from “Good Morning America,” “The Today Show” and “Ocean Treks.”

Once properly geared up with helmets, crampons and harnesses, Sofhauser, a bearded transplant from Texas, led our group up a single-track path to the edge of the ice caves.

In addition to Sofhauser and I, our group included a married couple from Houston, Maria Isabel Ramos and Miguel Faur, and two other guides, Sarah Galvin and Ben Hines.

Ramos and Faur had also discovered the ice caves on social media. Working a desk job for a chemical company all day, Faur said, leaves him longing for experiences like this. They both got up at 5 a.m. to make the 7 a.m. tour.

“Being able to explore nature in the most pure sense gives us a lot of happiness and energy,” he said.

We passed by a small, silty lake about 100 feet long. Sofhauser pointed out that the glacier had covered that lake just a year ago.

Up ahead lied a semicircular opening in the ice, the entrance to the ice caves as it is currently formed. From the entrance, a small stream emptied into the lake.

Before entering, we’d have to get a safety lesson.

Sofhauser explained that the ice caves are always changing, so he has to judge their safety on a daily basis. Solid, clear blue ice overhead is safer as it’s less likely to fall.

What he’s worried about more is the white, aerated ice. He’s also looking out for rocks poking out of the ceiling.

“The primary hazard is rocks falling from the ceiling of the cave and the secondary hazard is the cave collapsing in on us,” Sofhauser said. “We’re looking for weaknesses in ice, things that can break off. On the other side, I’ll be able to show you things that are very clear and present dangers. This here looks pretty good because it’s all in one piece. When we’re inside the cave, it’s very important that you stay exactly where I tell you to be.”

After examining the cave’s entrance, Sofhauser gave us the go-ahead. Because of safety concerns, ABAK never guarantees a trip inside the caves.

“I feel pretty good about going inside the cave today,” Sofhauser said. “That said, this is ultimately your decision. This is something we are doing that is above and beyond the scope of our actual tour, so by going inside the cave you are accepting a higher level of risk.”

Once inside the cave, it’s immediately apparent why so many people are drawn to it. Wind flowing down off the glacier — a “katabatic” wind, Galvin explained — creates ripples on the cave ceiling which resemble upside down dunes.

A stream flows down the center of the cave. All around is a translucent, glowing azure blue of the ice.

We take photos and marvel at the surroundings, all while the guides keep an eye at what lies overhead. One foot to the left, Sofhauser tells us, and we’re right under a ready-to-fall rock or a piece of cracked, aerated ice.

“We’re really watching this stuff closely, because this lighter colored this gets, the less stable it is as a general rule. Over here it’s super bad,” he said, pointing to a “spider web” of aerated ice.

In addition to receding, the Mendenhall Glacier loses about 20 feet of surface ice a summer, causing the ice caves to constantly change shape. As surface melts, pressure is released from the ice below it, allowing the ice to expand and air to work it’s way in.

Sofhauser expects this ice cave to collapse at some point this summer.

“We didn’t think that it would still be here this year, but it is. It will definitely be gone by the end of the summer,” he said.

There are a couple of burgeoning ice caves next to the one currently accessible, their openings currently about a foot tall. Those could open up as early as this year, but nobody knows yet whether those will be safe to enter.

A newly-formed exit to the cave illustrates just how treacherous the caves can be. A band of rocks hangs just above the exit on a thin overhang.

“Based on the information I’ve got in the last couple of days, this is our most hazardous spot,” Sofhauser said before venturing out the exit to take a look. “See that big band of rocks up there? All that stuff is falling from the ceiling, so we’re going to try and go around it. Just watch me.”

He begins to instruct us on how to exit, but a cry from a tourist in a group trailing ours cuts him short. After a beat, Sofhauser realizes it wasn’t a distress call, but a tourist yelling out of excitement.

“I really hate when people do that. Sometimes people scream out of fear here. Please don’t scream,” he tells us.

Four tour companies — Liquid Alaska, Alaska Travel Adventures, ABAK and Gastineau Guiding — hold the required permits to take a total of 7,594 people to the ice caves this season, Shalkowski said. Almost all of those permits were created in a 2014 Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area Management Plan Revision.

Pete Schneider, a Natural Resource Specialist with the USFS, said the main thing they tell people is to take a guide.

“This time of year we definitely recommend taking a guide out there,” Schneider said. “It’s a constantly dynamic system.”

Mother Nature has provided some pretty spectacular views at the ice caves, he added, and they’ve seen an explosion in interest in the destination. That’s cause for celebration, but also for caution, he added.

“Mother Nature provides these perfect conditions and it’s neat, but with that comes all kinds of folks that have gone out that are ill prepared,” he said. “We don’t want to discourage anybody from going out and enjoying the national forest, but when people go out that are ill-prepared, it’s dangerous and it taxes everyone’s resources.”