Walk to the Glacier

In case some of you lower-48ers were wondering if we still have snow, the answer is yes. Yes, we still have a quiet a bit of snow. Juneau has actually had 145 inches of snowfall this year in case you're counting.
So the other day, we had a great combination of sunshine and surprisingly not so frigid temperatures. So since we haven't had any fresh snowfall in several days and I knew the paths were well worn, I decided to load the kids into the jogger stroller. We walked all the way to the glacier from our house. In the summer it usually takes me about an hour, but with snow it took almost 1 1/2 hours. It was our first walk out to the glacier this year and surely not our last.

wearing shades--us Juneau folk aren't so used to the bright sun

In the summer this area is a parking lot for the big tour buses that drop people off at the glacier. But in the winter, it's a dumping ground for excess snow. With 145 inches you can't just leave it all on the sides of the road. Some streets are too narrow to just have the snow accumulate. I must admit, I sometimes feel a bit claustrophobic driving around in the winter or even just walking from my car to our front door. Anyway, on days like this, the city road crews spend time removing the snow from neighborhoods. I lost track of how many dump trucks past by on the street as we walked. They all drive out loaded with snow, dump their loads, and then go back out to get more. My guess is that about every 2 minutes a dump truck would pass us that was either coming from or going to the parking lot.

The Mendenhall in winter

On the way back Carly was very impressed with these icicles hanging from the rocks on the side of the path. They were very cool and picture worthy.

Carly also talked her way into walking for a bit on the return. It was good exercise for her, but it really slowed down my work out. She had fun though. And there was no worry about her wandering into the street when we had our very own tunnel to walk along.