Laughton Glacier

My friend Iraise is on a mission to complete the Skagway Trail Challenge, which involves hiking all of the local trails in Skagway and Dyea. The trails range from an easy 1-mile jaunt to Yukatanea Point to a 33-mile trek on the Chilkoot Trail. I joined her on her second-to-last hike (and my third-to-last) to the Laughton Glacier.

We took a 14.5 mile train ride over the boarder to British Columbia, before being dropped off with seven other hikers hoping to see a retreating glacier at work. We hurridly hiked the 3.5 miles to the glacier, flowing frigid, silt-choked streams until we finally arrived at a massive boulder field. It took us a few minutes of staring at the wall ahead of us before we could begin to decipher ice from rock, but we slowly realized the glacier filled the whole valley we were in. It wasn't the picturesque blue glacier we had anticipated, but the more we explored the "young" valley and massive ice, we were awe-struck at the power of nature. The force of nature is still at work in Alaska and today we were able to see evidence of where the landscape is still being created.
And of course, no hike is complete without a little treat from the Lemon Rose bakery after!