May 21, 2016 - Part 1

We were astounded to learn that one hour from our house there's an actual glacier, so we went today to check it out.

I always thought glaciers were free-floating mountain-size blocks of ice, but a quick wikipedia search shows that they are only formed on land, they are found in mountain ranges on every continent except Australia, and they cover about 10% of the Earth's land surface.  Aside from the polar regions, glaciers only occur in the Himalayas, Andes, Rocky Mountains, a few high mountains in East Africa, Mexico, New Guinea and Iran.  (Mexico has glaciers - who knew??)  Also glacial ice is the largest reservoir of freshwater on Earth.

The trail to the glacier was pretty rocky but otherwise nondescript.

It wasn't long, however, before the trail scene turned to this.  

This shot gives a pretty good idea of the depth of snow...

thankfully we weren't sinking in it most of the time.