I spent a relaxing weekend at home house sitting while my host family was on vacation in Seatle, Washington. It was just me and Luna, the household Polish Sheep Dog. On Sunday we went to the Portage Glacier Visitor Center to learn about glaciers and see one for real. This was to be my first time going to an actual glacier.
It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon with mostly sunny skies and warm T-shirt temperatures. The visitor center was very busy with tourists due to the day and weather. Although a very nice place, but with such crowds there we visited shortly and pressed on for the real thing.
After a short drive we were at the Byron Glacier trail head. A small parking lot with the typical RVs and SUVs in it and a boy with his dog. We strarted up this gentle trail and did not see to many people at first, but I was sure to know the approach of others as Luna would bark at them. The path led uphill beside a glacial stream that came down from Byron and went down into Portage Lake. In a short time we came to a snowfield that led up to the glacier itself. Their were many people there with children playing in the snow. A group of three young sisters were having a snowball fight around their parents. Dogs and their owners were exploring the snow and playing fetch as Luna and I hiked on by.
Luna is an overprotective dog that does not do well around others, especially dogs. He barks away and snaps if provoked. So I took precautions by giving all others a wide berth and headed for a place with less people. We hiked up and over the snow fields and through a moraine. This seemed a suitable tourist barrier to give us some space to relax. Here I had my lunch and shared it with Luna too. As I ate my lunch I gazed up at the deep blue Ice of the glacier and wondered what it felt like to touch it. So, I decided to go and find out.
Up we went through a larger snow field on a steep slope at the end of the valley. The sun was hot and the snow was wet. For every three steps I took I slipped one. After digging my boots into the snow for some time we were at the last stretch to the glacier. All we could hear was the sound of waterfalls as they cascaded down on both sides of the valley walls around us. Punctuated occasionally by the sounds of ravens up to their daily routines. One even stopped to gaze upon the two travelers passing through. A deep black bird sitting upon a boulder just behind us. All seemed still as we marched on to our goal.
As we hiked along in calm wonder a noise cast me out of thought as some ice broke free of the glacier ahead and crashed down the wall of ice toward the valley below. It was some distance away and posed no direct threat to me, but got me thinking of avalanches. My imagination got to working on this notion as I hiked along and I could visualize the whole wall of ice ahead of me crashing down and rolling over me. A scary thought to say the least! Yet, I went onward scared or not.
Once I got to the edge of the glacier I sat my butt down on it and looked around to see where I had got myself. It was a beautiful valley to be in on a nice summer day. I could see where the waterfalls splashed down into the valley bottom to become a stream running down into the lake far below. The lake was fairly large and had little white dots floating about in it. Not boats, but Icebergs that had fallen off a diferent glacier tha was nearby and fed directly into the lake below. After I got my fill (and my butt was fairly numb) we went back down the way we had came. A nice way to spend a summer afternoon if I do say so myself!
