After three separate attempts over four years to hike to the Salmon Glacier, this was the year I would finally make it to the ice some 900 vertical feet (~272 meters) below the viewpoint. At a nearly 45 degree average slope, it had sections that were borderline vertical dirt. And of course, if we were hiking to a glacier we were bringing plenty of ice climbing gear (otherwise what was the point!?), so we would all have good, heavy backpacks. The way down would be a struggle to stay upright and not break an ankle, the way back up would be a hot, grueling slog up loose scree and boulders, mixed in with some good old fashion bushwhacking through thick brush on near vertical slopes.
Canada is a vast and beautiful place, but after five summers of driving back and forth between Utah and Alaska, I had gotten pretty tired of the 50 hour drive. After five days of spending ten hours a day behind the wheel, your body becomes sore in ways you’ve never imagined. Sure, it’s an incredibly scenic drive, but if all you’re doing is trying to get from A to B, even the scenery doesn’t cheer you up.
That’s why, in 2019, I was super excited to hear a total of nine people from MICA would be road-tripping back to the lower 48, and we all had plenty of time to stop and play along the way. A few ten hour days of driving are easy if you have plenty of adventure days in between and good friends to hang with at night.
Brett, Kelsey, Alec, Marissa and I would start from MICA and head toward Canada. Once in the Yukon, the road split between the normal route, and a side road to Haines, which none of us had been down as it’s mostly a dead-end. Mostly. Haines is a small fishing town on the water. While technically in Alaska, you can only drive to Haines by one small road heading south from deep in the Yukon.
The reason none of us ever drove to Haines was it seemed to be pretty out of the way when we were usually in a hurry to get to or from Alaska. However, there is a ferry from Haines to nearby Skagway, only a few miles away but inaccessible by land. Skagway also has only one road in, through Canada. We decided to explore some new areas and pay to ferry across, seeing a lot of new road and exploring the White Pass route from Skagway northeast into Canada. The world-renowned route was pioneered by gold miners looking to strike it rich in interior Canada. Skagway had developed first as a mining town and later as a tourism stop for many cruise lines en route to Alaska.
Our other four friends (Scott, Katie, Lacie and Clay) had decided against the ferry detour, but instead took a trip to explore the Kennicott and Root Glaciers near McCarthy, Alaska. Our separate itineraries would give everyone a chance to explore something they hadn’t ever seen, and afterward we all planned to meet up above the Salmon Glacier near Stewart, B.C.
Camping with friends always makes the drive more exciting. Plus, like the last few years driving south, our food options were greatly expanded by those MICA crew members that had chosen to fly home but purchased too much food before hand.
After our ferry route, it was only another day and a half drive to the Salmon Glacier so we had a leisurely time of it and enjoyed some beautiful campsites on the way.
Once at the overlook, we had a tremendous view, and a fantastic sunrise our first day.
To avoid distractions and chance missing the Salmon Glacier again, I had lobbied for us to tackle that objective the first day, and anything we did after that was a bonus in my book. With great weather in the forecast that day, but a chance of rain the following days, it would be our best chance to stay dry and much safer on the steep hike anyway.
So we got off to a semi-early start, but Scott, Katie, Lacie and Clay all arrived to our campsite at the viewpoint late the night before (or rather, early that morning) and would be taking it easy after a few solid days of driving to meet us.
The view from above is always amazing, but it was fun to see the perspective change rapidly as we descended to the glacier.
As always, Brett was way out in front scouting the best route for us more cautious folk to follow down.
From my attempt to hike it with Lizzie a few years prior, I knew the route started off fairly mellow but got real scary down low. Since the glacier was quickly melting down, the newly exposed rock formerly covered by ice was loose and broken. Not only was there no vegetation to hold onto or keep the loose gravel in place, it was also much steeper than anything above.
It was soft and slick enough that even I forgot to stop and take pictures – the last couple hundred feet was all-points on sliding down scree, then quickly getting out from under the next person who would be sending rocks tumbling down on top of you.
But hey, we made it!
For a while the five of us just wandered aimlessly, looking at random features here and there. Then we decided to cover some ground so we split into two groups and head in different directions. We hoped to meet up somewhere in the middle to discuss what we found, and with any luck one of the groups would have seen something fun to climb.
Marissa and I headed west, toward the source of the glacier and some crevasse fields visible from above, and the others headed north to explore.
When Marissa and I found the travel tough due bigger and bigger crevasses, we discussed putting on crampons. We had thus far been walking in our hiking boots with no added traction (the sun-crust on the ice was plenty on relatively flat ice). We decided, though, that travel would still be difficult with all the shallow crevasses and it would be a long way in this direction to find anything deep enough to drop a rope down. So we changed course to find our friends and see what they were up to.
We headed north toward the area of our vague plan to join up as a group. The way was slow going with so many cracks in the ice this far out. Jumping the smaller gaps saved us a lot of time weaving back and forth around shalow crevasses.
Marissa soon spotted the others, already walking back our direction.
They had gone toward the broken edge over Summit Lake to see what it looked like. Staying close to the edge to avoid undercut ice, it became too broken and scary to get very far out. Not many climbing options there, either.
We had seen a few holes in the ice near where we descended from the parking lot, so we decided those would be our best option to get the ropes out.
Walking back, Alec found some rusty nails in an old board. Likely from some mine which litter the hills around this area, the wood probably fell to the glacier in an avalanche or landslide.
We also spotted some terrific examples of glacial striation along the melting edge of the glacier:
Glacial striation is the term for scrapes and scratches in rock, cut out by a glacier traveling over top. The basal ice (ice at the bottom of a glacier) is typically full of rock and dirt frozen into the glacier. As it slides along the bedrock those rocks stuck in the ice scratch the surface of the rock and wear it away over time like huge, very course sandpaper.
After wandering around the edges of the glacier near our entrance, we found a few promising holes and decided to explore further.
One in particular looked promising, but it was difficult to tell how deep it went. The old, throw ice down the hole trick didn’t work because it changed directions too many times. So we drilled in some anchors and Brett headed in to check it out. It was a winding tunnel, so more of a climb down than simply being able to lower down on the rope.
But down it went, winding deeper and deeper until we could hear nothing but overlapping echoes of Brett’s voice coming up from below.
He was ecstatic about the climb and the ways it twisted and turned. So we all took a turn slowly climbing backward into the darkness as far as we dared.
With crampons made more for trekking than vertical ice climbing, Kelsey had a bit more difficult time climbing. She had a great time, but looked a bit tired out after climbing back to the surface.
Once down in the bottom, I was yet again blown away by the incredible beauty of glacier ice. Looking up it seemed like an endless hole that went on forever, and it would be hard to tell where the real entrance to the cave was without the rope leading the way back to the surface. As usual, I took my time before starting the climb, exploring a side passage too narrow to move into. I spotted some ice worms on the walls, and had to take this opportunity to watch them navigate their icy environment.
In this short video clip you can see a worm just over an inch long crawling around the ice. This worm is actually inside the wall, which has a layer of refrozen water ice over top the glacier ice. The spray from water falling into a moulin often will create multiple layers like this, but I’ve never noticed hollow passages underneath. I’m uncertain if the worms are able to create passageways or just take advantage of existing openings.
Watch closely and you can see him/her trying to navigate around a diamond shaped piece of ice, then finally moving over it in what looks like a tighter section. As the worm prepares to move the back of its body closer, you’ll notice the front half widens, filling the void between both sheets of ice. The worm can use that method to lock part of itself in place to move through the slippery world of ice.
How cool is that!?
There were a ton of ice worms crawling around the bottom of the moulin, but my friends were waiting for their turn up above, so I turned back toward the dry surface and did my best ice worm impression to wiggle my way up.
Marissa also went to the bottom, and I was able to get inside the entrance with another rope to peek down inside as she climbed up.
After we had all taken a turn climbing, we wandered off to explore more options for adventure. We quickly discovered another way under the ice, this time without needing a rope to drop into.
This cave had an easy entrance, but was right at the edge of the ice so the mud from the hillside above made for a mucky mess mixed with the melting ice.
There were amazing ice formations all over the cave as we followed passages deeper and deeper inside the glacier. As we found our way inside, less light could make its way to us through the ice.
Everything took on a blue hue as all other wavelengths of light is absorbed much faster by ice and water (this is the same reason scuba divers see mostly blue deep underwater).
We followed a winding river passage through the ice. We were not under the glacier, but inside a hollow tube carved by water. Many floods of meltwater or rain from outside washed rock and dirt into the passage, depositing it on the bottom and on ‘shelves’ as the water melts intricate pathways down into the glacier.
Here, you can see the water at work. At low water levels like when this was taken, water cuts into a more narrow path. But at times of high water, like hot summer days when the glacier is melting fast, or heavy rains outside washing in, it melts a wider passage.
That shift from more water to less water leaves the shelves of moraine (rock and dirt) like you see in the two above photos.
This photo shows an interesting texture created by cracks deep into the ice. I actually don’t know what would cause this (if you do let me know!), whether it cracked as a result of the river (maybe smashing big rocks into the ice), or just the immense pressure of the ice itself as the glacier moves. I have seen this sort of thing on other glaciers, where sections of ice seem riddled with cracks and others appear perfectly clear throughout.
Sure looks cool though!
Another cavern revealed itself before the river passageway became too narrow to follow further.
On the way out I was admiring how the light was coming through from the ice overhead in bands, and told Kelsey to strike a pose as she walked through.
As it was already getting late, so we made the trek back to camp and the hike up was as dreadful as we had expected. Loose rock slipping out from under our feet at every step meant we had to make three steps for every one step of progress. Once above the ice, it was hot and slow going. We were covered in sweat by the time we reached the road.
The next day it was us five who decided to take it easy and the other four went for a hike to another glacier down the road.
We went for a drive to explore, and took some time to get Brett and Kelsey’s cat some exercise too.
After a day of rest and easy road-side adventures, we decided to see about getting to another glacier, this one unnamed on the maps high in the hills above the Salmon viewpoint. At least today we could get the uphill over with first, and walk back down at the end of the day.
With no direction from any map, we followed a few trails worn in by wandering feet for a while, but soon lost them. Navigating simply by what came before us, we aimed up the hill in the general direction of a rarely seen mass of ice.
High on the hill below the unnamed glacier, we witnessed huge sections of rock that had been striated by the glacier. This one must be receding quickly, because it has left a massive area of deglaciated rock still free of any vegetation.
Some of us took the more direct route, Brett, while most the others opted to take a longer route around most obstacles.
At one point someone saw some shiny stuff in the rock, and we all got distracted looking for gold flakes. Pretty sure we just got fooled by pyrite like so many others. Still, it was a fun distraction imagining we could strike it rich – just like miners in the gold rush.
Eventually we made it to the ice. After a short break in the sun, some of us opted for a walkabout on the glacier while others went up the scenic ridge above.
Today we brought along no ice climbing gear, hoping to move more quickly in lighter backpacks. In case of a trip over the ice we brought along microspikes instead of heavy crampons.
Microspikes are just rubber slippers with chains holding a small plate of spikes underneath. They have the advantage of being usable on any footwear – even running shoes.
We found plenty of cool glacial features like this crevasse and moulin with curvy sides resembling a slot canyon. Brett, though, found an absolutely enormous moulin seeming to drop to the center of the earth. Somehow, Brett just senses when something dangerously awesome is nearby. In classic glacier guide style, we would have to throw something down the hole – for science.
Throwing something in a hole is the best way to check how deep it is without going to the bottom yourself. So we searched far and wide for rocks a piece of ice to break off, but we hadn’t planned on ice climbing so we were ill-prepared to harvest ice chunks to throw into holes. How had no-one at least brought an ice axe!?
Just when we thought we would be hiking all the way to the toe of the glacier to carry back rocks to throw in, Brett spotted some fins of ice near a pool he thought would break free easily.
We carried a few chunks back to the big hole and let them fly. Without crampons for better footing, we really only had one place to get anywhere close to the edge, and shooting photos of this thing just really wasn’t doing it justice. The sound that echoed back to us made some of the biggest caves I’ve ever seen feel like child’s play.
I walked over next to Brett and managed to film the second drop. I’ve gotta warn you, the video here still makes me cringe, so if you’re afraid of heights, maybe skip this one.
Such a deep moulin with absolutely perfect vertical walls for probably over 100 feet/30 meters (judging by the 3-4 second free-fall of the ice) had us all really regretting not bringing the ropes. How long would it take to hike back to the cars and return with our gear? It would likely be dark by the time we got to climb. There just was no way to make it work on this trip. Maybe some other time…
This would be the last day with only a small chance of precipitation before two to three days of heavy rain, meaning, for us, it was time to do some more driving.
We would spend some time in Squamish on the way south, as seems to be the tradition now, before going our separate ways for the winter. Knowing that we have no work for the next two or three months, most of us camp exclusively in free spots and watch our budget closely. This time, though, we would splurge and the nine of us would share three nights in a rented house right in Squamish, in the midst of world-class rock climbing in every direction.