Ice caves, no ice caves. Frozen lake, thawed lake. Cold winter, warm winter. Conditions and maybe a little bit of luck are everything when making the trip to the famous ice caves at the Mendenhall Glacier!
On this particular morning, Shalyn, Derek, Kevin (aka boyfriend/bag + coat holding assistant), and I made the 2 mile hike over the frozen Mendenhall lake to the ice caves, because the conditions were, just right!
Every year the caves are a little different. Which means for us, the exploring never ends. The ice melts, new caves open up, sometimes a river off the mountain will carve out a new path into the glacier. It’s all so magical.
Our trip to the face of the glacier for these photos came right before the big Juneau frenzy started! There was a stint of 3 weeks of freezing sunny weather, the path was just slightly packed across the lake making it easier for walking, and we really weren’t sure what backdrops we were going to find! We never ended up taking engagement photos inside of the cave. However, the last photo in this post is one of Shalyn from inside! One entrance was literally a military crawl, not ideal for most, by the slight claustrophobic freak out and thought of being crushed by the ice might have been worth that view!
