Despite the somewhat discouraging promotion, five people signed up for the Muldrow Glacier hike on Thursday. I didn't really think the hike was as strenuous as the staff made it out to be. Wearing the camp's river shoes while crossing the Thorofare is what made the hike painful; it you avoided those booties, you were fine. The sand was a great place to spot animal tracks.

I brought my sandals with me, but the water levels were low enough that I thought I could rock hop my way across. That was a mistake; I ended up soaking my feet along the way. Fortunately, I also packed a change of socks. On the way back, I used my sandals.

I wised up on this trip, and left my tripod in my cabin, along with all but one general-purpose lens. The emphasis today would be the hike, not the photography.

It was tough going through the swamp. With each step, my boots sank into an inch or two of mud underneath the inch or two of water. By now, my boots felt like they weighed an extra ten pounds each, and I was looking forward to those dry socks.

Looking back at the bluffs we descended to get to the river bar. Our bus is a little white dot about halfway up the mountain on the left. The initial descent was 400 ft. straight down a muddy, badly eroded otter trail.

Since this lower part of Muldrow Glacier does not move, it's more correctly referred to as an ice-core moraine. It doesn't look like it, but underneath all that vegetation and black gravel is solid ice. Our plan was to hike alongside this mass to where it joins the moving part of the glacier.

Our guide today was Luke, a wise-cracking smartass crazy man. He was a fun guy to have around on this particular hike.

After we left the creek bed, we climbed over the moraine's rolling hills and around its lakes. The water was surprisingly clear.

Except for the loose rock, the footing here wasn't bad. The ice was buried deep enough to not be an issue.

The junction between the true glacier and the ice-core moraine was marked by a couple of large lakes. That dirty wall on the far side is the face of the glacier.

Luke, Mike, and Art.

Looking east towards the base of Mt. Eielson. The New York couple is in the foreground.

The rock layer got thinner the closer we got to the ice walls, and we started to encounter some slick spots. It was easy to stand upright and slide down this entire slope.

Like the Holgate Glacier in Kenai Fjords, the Muldrow here was a symphony of cracking, popping, cascading, and splashing.

Our lunch spot.

Luke, leading us off after lunch on a counter-clockwise loop around the big lake.

We encountered a couple of large ice caves, really more like ice pits. The entrance was a dangerous place to stand, as a steady stream of small rocks to large boulders continuously crashed down from above. Luke checked this first cave out, and decided we could find an easier place to go exploring.

Ice cave number two, about a quarter mile away, was even larger. However, it was still really more of a pit than a cave.

Luke, wearing crampons, descended down to the base of the cave. The interior was huge.

Everything you see is solid ice, coated with a thin layer of dirt. The day was a warm one, so the ice was extremely slippery to touch or stand on.

Luke asked if anyone else was coming in. I was the only one who was willing to venture down the slick slope.

Everyone else was smarter than I was. The inside of the cave was dark, wet, cold, slippery, and a little scary. Rain pattered down from the ceiling, and I saw a couple of rocks as big as I was thunder down from the entrance. Luke had disappeared down the cave tunnel, where it was too dark to even see, much less photograph. Neither of us had thought to bring a flashlight. Luke was hoping to find a separate exit where he could sneak up behind and surprise the rest of our group, but he wasn't able to find one he could get out of. I mostly just poked my way around one toe at a time in the dark.

Getting out, without crampons, was a real challenge. I had slid down on my butt for the last several feet, and I had to climb over a crevasse to get back out. I had to lie on my belly to get any traction. Luke helped out in places with a handhold and one well-timed push. I was filthy by the time I reached the surface. That exploration wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done, but the experience was worth it.

Muldrow Glacier hike GPS track. The hike back across the Thorofare was long but uneventful, and much quicker wearing river sandals rather than boots. Chuck had loaned me some Gore-Tex socks, and those worked out well. I'll have to get me a pair before I re-hike the Gunter Fork Trail in the Smokies. The ascent at the end of the day up the otter trail wasn't as terrible as I feared. I didn't curse once, which is about a hundred fewer curses than I let loose the last time I climbed that path. There was debate on the hike mileage afterwards. My GPS said 8 miles, but I was told that didn't properly reflect "moral miles." They had a point; it was certainly a tough 8 miles.

The mountain was partially out when we got back to camp.

After dinner, I climbed up Cranberry Ridge to wait for sunset and the alpenglow.

Chuck was up there as well, with his camera ready.

Chuck was prepared to wait a while. Many other photographers climbed the ridge that evening as well. The evening looked like it might turn into something special.

Alas, a blanket of clouds appeared out of nowhere just as the mountain started turning pink. You can see one of the Camp Denali buses rolling in at the bottom right.