Hiking Root Glacier

katabatic:  relating to or being a wind 

produced by the flow of cold dense air 

down a slope (as of a mountain or glacier) 

in an area subject to radiational cooling

                             -- Merriam-Webster Dictionary

On Tuesday, July 12, 2016, we were excited to be taking a hike out onto Root Glacier!  We scheduled a guided hike with St. Elias Alpine Guides because we were unfamiliar with the glacier and have not had much experience reading them - although we own crampons and have used crampons on ice before.

We started early in the morning.  Our guide, Christopher, is shown third from the right in the photo below.  This is a second career for him; he had been a chemical engineer and this is his chance to do what he loves.  And he clearly loves what he does.  He was a great guide - very friendly and knowledgeable, and acutely aware of his hikers' abilities and caring for their safety.

Our group was just seven:  Kathy and David, and a family of five from Gainesville, Florida.  Here we all are, posing at the trailhead:

Our goal was Root Glacier, which flows off of Regal Mountain.  In the photo below, Root Glacier is the white mass flowing in from the right.  It crashes into Kennicott Glacier, which is covered in brown gravel and rock and flows out of Mount Blackburn in the background in this photo.  We aimed to climb onto Root Glacier just above where it joins with Kennicott Glacier.

The first part of our hike was an easy 2.5 mile hike along the shoulder of the mountains behind the Kennecott Town Site, heading north toward the glacier:

Once we got near the glacier, we started a steep descent to its toe:

When we reached the glacier, we paused to put on our crampons.  After some brief instruction, we started climbing the glacier, hopping over little rivulets of crystal-blue glacier water flowing across the ice:

At one point, Kathy exulted in the clear, cool air on the glacier, blown down upon us by the katabatic wind.  Katabatic wind is generated when the air near the glacier surface is cooled and gets heavier. Being heavier, it slides down the glacier, displacing warmer air.  The result is a decrease of 10 or more degrees Farenheit in the temperature at the surface where we hike.

Once we reached the initial height on the glacier, our guide Christopher pointed out Castle Rock, a prominent feature to our east:

On we hiked, following ridge lines and the flow lines of glacial streams:

The line of hikers reminded us of photos we've seen of mountain climbers on Denali or Everest:

One of the unique features Christopher led us to and pointed out was a crystal blue waterfall on the glacier, where water plunged at least 30 feet from one level of the glacier to another:

Another interesting challenge was our need to scale an incline in which a stream of glacial water flowed down the center.  We had to, by turns, straddle the stream with our feet, duck walking up part of its length, or, where the chasm got wider, move ourselves up with our feet on one side of the water and our outstretched arms and hands against the other side:

Christopher was kind enough to snap our portrait at the glacial waterfall:

As a humorous treat at lunch, Christopher showed us the eco-friendly way to suck clear, frigid, clean glacial water out of a stream.  First, take a licorice stick, then bite each end off, making a drinking straw of the candy.  Then do a deep push-up with your hands and feet planted in the ridges of snow above a stream of water, until the Twizzler reaches the water and you can suck it in.  Drink a little (no hands, because they're still holding you up), but retain most of it in your mouth.  Raise your head and squirt the water out through the licorice stick at whichever unwitting hiker happens to be closest to you.  David demonstrates:

We took our lunch on a height of the glacier overlooking a blue-green glacial lake.  On the left side of the photo below, you can see another group of hikers resting and eating their lunch, too:

David's crampons gave him some trouble, coming off his boots a couple times, partly due to the flexibility of his boots.  Here he is, once again reattaching and binding his crampon.  Eventually, Christopher diagnosed the problem and gave David a workaround for flexible boots.

Did we say how cold, clear and beautifully blue the glacial streams were?

Some streams flowed eventually into moulins:

A moulin or glacier mill is a roughly circular, 

vertical to nearly vertical well-like shaft 

within a glacier or ice sheet which water 

enters from the surface. The term is derived 

from the French word for mill.  They can be 

up to 10 meters wide and are typically found 

on ice sheets and flat areas of a glacier 

in a region of transverse crevasses. They are 

the most typical cause for the formation of a glacier cave.

Moulins are a part of a glacier's internal "plumbing" system, 

that carry meltwater from the surface down to 

wherever it may go. Water from a moulin 

often exits the glacier at base level.

Water from moulins may help lubricate the base of the glacier, 

affecting glacial motion.

                                              -- Wikipedia, "Moulin (geomorphology)"

Luckily, none of our group slipped and slid into any of the moulins we passed.

Despite the coolness of the air on the glacier, we were hiking aerobically, and were quite warmed by our trek.  Halfway back to Kennecott Town Site, we crossed the Jumbo Creek Falls, where Kathy took a quick opportunity to duck her head and dunk her feet in the icy cold glacial water.

Instant cool-down!

Having conquered a glacier, we decided that our agenda for the next day would be a somewhat tamer -- but nonetheless very interesting -- inside tour of the Kennecott Concentration Mill.  That will be the subject of our next blog entry.