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Saturday June 20^th, 1998

We got up at 9am, and got ready for a quick walk to the end of the glacier – not sure at all what we would come across. Leaving about 10:30, we made excellent progress initially but quickly ran into trouble with melt water channels.  This should have been a sign of things to come.  One was more than a meter across with a half meter of slush either side – all of it deep enough to soak our feet.

I was the fastest on this section, and headed for a part of the glacier that appeared to slope down rather than forming a cliff.  I got down to the base of the glacier easily, but after a short sandy bank there was a wide fast flowing melt water river (or at least stream).  With pieces of ice floating it.  It varied in width and depth, and I wandered up and down looking for a way to cross.  By then the rest of the group was there and we were confounded as to how to get across this. We had to keep our packs dry and even if we didn’t the water temperature would kill us if we swam.

Then Tony (I think) just started walking though the shallowest part – which was up to his waist.  After getting across, he warned us that it was ice at the bottom and to be very careful. We slowly made it across, me trying to do it in my boot shells to keep my liners dry.  This was a mistake as my feet moved around too much and I had to go back after just a few feet.  I had to dry off, warm up, and try again.  When it was all done I had nice clean feet, dry liners, and that if I had left the liners on and worn crampons it would have been much easier,

We climbed up the bank about 100 feet and made camp.  Pete, Tony, and I climbed up the ridge and got some spectacular views and shots of the surrounding glaciers and mountains.  I also wandered down to the river and went up to a vertical part of the glacier, took pictures, and getting out of there before one of the tall building sized pieces of iced caved off.

Just after wandering back to camp, one of the ice towers toppled off the side of the glacier.  My back was hurting/sore, so after eating, I went to bed.

Saturday June 20th, 1998 Crossing a mid sized (for this part of this glacier) meltwater channel - some were larger, many smaller.	Saturday June 20th, 1998 Close to the edge of the Air Force Glacier we've been on for days.	Saturday June 20th, 1998 The river/stream we had to corss. Fast moving, icy, ice bottom, and waist deep at this location. Much of this sandy gravel is actually on top of ice.
Saturday June 20th, 1998	Saturday June 20th, 1998 Our camp above the stream with a great shot of the glacier in the background. Note the large pieces that look like the are about to fall off just left of center.	Saturday June 20th, 1998 Another shot looking upstream.
Saturday June 20th, 1998 Evidence of wildlife well above camp. It could a few years or a hundred years old.	Saturday June 20th, 1998 This is about the extent of the plant life here. I tried all four orientations of this pictire and this looked the best.	Saturday June 20th, 1998 A great shot from well above camp. The lake in the picture from yesterday is in the center of the picture where the large meltwater channel is. We crossed the stream about 1/4 of the way from the left side of this picture.
Saturday June 20th, 1998 A great view of the Air Force Glacier we came down.	Saturday June 20th, 1998 Minutes after taking this picture, the large chunks of ice just to the left of center came crashing down and damed the stream.

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