Hiking Byron Glacier

We met the "Adventurers MeetUp Group"  this morning for a glacier hike about an hour south of Anchorage, near Portage Lake.  Byron Glacier is a hanging glacier.  There is a massive snowfield, which you'll see in the pictures, "a permanent feature built up of the hardened avalanche snow of many previous winters." (Hiking Alaska - A Falcon Guide).  We got to put on our new Kartoolas when we got to the snowfield, and we each took a ski pole, since we didn't have hiking poles.  They came in handy for crossing the snowfield and for the little bit of actual "blue ice" we crossed up higher.  Not everybody went that far, and we were hoping there wasn't something the people from New York didn't know but should have!  There were definitely very deep crevasses you would not want to slide into, and Brian reviewed the self-arrest technique for us.  It was another gorgeous day, unbelievable really.  The blue ice doesn't show as deeply in the picture, and it was quite a sight. You'll see 3 guys climbing with ice axes up the face of the glacier - we only went to the base of that wall.  We were gone about 4 hours hiking by the time we got back to the car.

We (or at least Judy) like to start Sunday with coffee from the Fire Island Bakery at 14th and G St. -- it's hard to walk by the other things they make there, but their coffee is great, and it's the only day that I drink it -- still decaffinated though!  Back to work tomorrow for one of us - Brian gets some more time to settle in -- and read comments on our blog if any of our followers sent us any!  (Hint, hint - we'd love to hear from you!)