Paddling to Bear Glacier

We had quite a few things on our bucket list for this trip to Alaska, after having been here in 2016 to scout everything and having decided to return with our motorhome, Jeep and kayaks.  One of the items was to camp at Meziadin Lake, which we knew we wanted to do for at least a week in order to embark on all of the attendant adventures we knew we would find here.

Another bucket list item was to return to Bear Glacier, along Highway 37A from Meziadin Junction to Stewart, B.C., and to paddle up to its toe across Strohn Lake, which is partially fed by runoff from the glacier.  On August 25, 2019, we had enough promised good weather to permit us to try the paddle.  No matter how good the weather was down at Meziadin Lake, the weather up at Bear Glacier, at Windy Hill Pass, would undoubtedly be colder, and possibly much wetter.  We picked the best weather and headed up to try.

By the time we got to the boat ramp at Strohn Lake, the weather was already threatening.  Large rain clouds were being pushed up the canyon from Stewart on Portland Canal to the west, and the heavens could open up at any time.  But we were determined, and decided that we would complete the paddle, even if we got sopping wet.  We dressed as warmly as we could, with rain gear, and let into the lake:

This was perhaps the trickiest launch we have tried, because, for whatever reason, the boat ramp meets the lake right beside the outlet stream, which is not a small creek under normal circumstances, and had risen to muddy, raging "white" water after the recent rains.  The current at the outflow into the stream was obviously very strong, and we needed to be careful to put our kayaks in far enough upstream from the outflow to avoid getting sucked down backward as we tried to paddle against the current.  But we thought it through correctly, and we were able to paddle up the shoreline a safe distance from the outflow current.  From there, we started our paddle across the lake toward Bear Glacier:

The upper end of the lake still showed blue skies peeking through the increasing clouds, which was cheering.  The glacial nature of the valley could not be denied from our vantage point:

The thing about distances in the wilderness is that things always seem closer than they really are, because it's difficult to judge their size and so figure distance.  We had a paddle of perhaps a mile to get across the lake, and, slowly, we got closer to Bear Glacier.  We could now hear the roar of the water flowing out from under the glacier and through a braided alluvial outflow plain into the lake:

We realized that the outflow current, too, would be too strong for us to approach head-on, so we picked the shoreline on one side and paddled until it grew too shallow to paddle further, then beached the kayaks. 

Even here, we were still almost another mile from the actual toe of the glacier.  We decided to hike as far as we could toward the glacier.

We eventually reached a point where the shoreline shrubbery made it difficult to pick our way further.  Because it was cold and the lake bottom here was very silty with risk of quicksand spots, we didn't want to wade the shallow water, even though we could have done so with our water boots.  Furthermore, even if we got through the vegetation, it was now clear that the bare rock and scree would have been treacherous to climb to get close to the glacier.

So we called it here and decided to take our photos with Bear Glacier.  First Kathy --

-- then David --

-- and, finally, the obligatory selfie with that glacial wonder:

The shoreline opposite us was dark volcanic rock, scraped bare by the glacier with loose scree from the glacier's retreat.  We thought about paddling over and walking about, but we could not have gotten closer to the glacier without trying to climb steep, slippery rockface.  That's okay, we'll admire it from here:

We even took this short video so that you can appreciate the scale of the glacier and lake and the roaring sound of the outflow stream.

Here's a photo of Bear Glacier from our closest point.  Some of the blues in the ice come through, but the photo just doesn't do justice to the powder blue color we could see:

We spotted the "ice cave" in the glacier's toe which marks the outflow of melted water streaming down to the lake:

The sun came out briefly just in time to give us a good look at the jumbled, dramatic seracs decorating the surface of the glacier where it dipped down over a cliff ledge and curled around the near slope:

Happy in the success of doing what we had dreamed about, we turned and looked back across Strohn Lake to the highway and a few RV's that had stopped to admire the glacier on their way over the pass.  It was time to paddle back --

-- but not before Kathy spotted a mini iceberg floating downstream to the lake in the glacier outflow.  She grabbed it (I admiringly point out that she did this bare-handed, braving the icy water to hold a frigid iceberg):

The outflow plain also contained an endless number of rocks that had not been picked over by casual tourists, and it was easy to find some gorgeous ones.  Kathy picked just one -- this beautiful red jasper or jade piece that, somehow, she will fit into the little wooden bowl that holds her rock collection:

With many more rewards than we had anticipated, we climbed back into our kayaks and started our paddle back across the lake, just as the heavens started warning us that they were about to open the spigot.  We did pause just long enough to turn our kayaks and spend a few minutes admiring Bear Glacier again --

-- before completing our paddle and braving the rains to strap them back on the Jeep for the short drive back to our campground.