You can drive to a 13-mile glacier outside Juneau, but not for much longer

It’s Alaska’s most accessible glacier

Most glaciers in Southeast Alaska require a boat, a bush plane, or a helicopter just to get a look. Mendenhall Glacier sits about 12 miles from downtown Juneau, and you can reach it by car.

The ice stretches roughly 13 miles from the Juneau Icefield toward Mendenhall Lake, all of it protected inside a 5,815-acre recreation area within the Tongass National Forest.

You can hike to a 377-foot waterfall, watch black bears pull salmon from a creek, and paddle a kayak past floating icebergs. The glacier is changing fast, though, and what you see today won’t be here long.

The Tlingit called it the glacier behind the little lake

The Tlingit people knew this place as Aak’wtaaksit long before anyone put it on a map. Naturalist John Muir showed up in 1879 and named it Auke Glacier after the local Aak’w Kwaan band.

In 1892, it was renamed for Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, a surveyor who helped draw the boundary between Alaska and Canada.

The glacier itself is a leftover from the Little Ice Age and hit its peak size around the mid-1700s. It has been pulling back ever since, and Mendenhall Lake started forming around 1929 as the ice retreated.

By November 2025, scientists confirmed the glacier had fully separated from the lake for the first time in modern history.

The visitor center was the first in any national forest

The Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center went up in 1962, and it holds a distinction you won’t find anywhere else.

Architect Linn A. Forrest designed the curving, glass-walled building on a perch above the valley, so the glacier and lake fill the windows from end to end.

Crews expanded and renovated it between 1997 and 1999, adding an exhibit gallery and theater.

Inside, you can watch a 15-minute film about glaciers and the Tongass, look through telescopes aimed at the ice, and find a taxidermy exhibit honoring Romeo, a black wolf who befriended local dogs and residents near the glacier from 2003 to 2009.

Nugget Falls drops 377 feet into the lake

Two tiers make up Nugget Falls. The upper tier drops about 99 feet, and the lower tier plunges roughly 278 feet down the mountainside into Mendenhall Lake. Meltwater from the Nugget Glacier above feeds the whole thing.

Before the glacier retreated, the falls crashed directly onto the ice. The trail to reach them runs about two miles round trip on flat, well-maintained gravel.

At the end, you step onto a wide sandbar at the base. The mist hits your face and the sound fills the valley.

Black bears fish for salmon just feet below the boardwalk

Steep Creek runs right near the visitor center parking area, and black bears wade into it every summer to catch spawning salmon.

Sockeye come through from mid-July to mid-September, then coho take over from late September into October. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says bears are most active here between July and September.

You watch from elevated boardwalks and viewing platforms the Forest Service built just a few feet above the water. Interpreters staff the site during peak season to keep things safe.

If bear activity gets heavy, they close sections of the trail.

Walk through a rainforest the glacier left behind

The Tongass National Forest covers roughly 17 million acres of temperate rainforest, the largest national forest in the country.

Sitka spruce, western hemlock, and cottonwood trees draped in thick moss line the trails near the visitor center.

The Trail of Time is a one-mile interpretive loop that walks you through the glacier’s retreat, with signs marking different stages along the way. Near the ice, you see bare rock and lichen.

Farther out, the forest thickens. You cross over Steep Creek, where salmon spawn and bears sometimes fish during the summer months.

Photo Point Trail gets you a head-on view of the ice

Photo Point Trail is paved and about one-third of a mile round trip. It leads straight to a view of the glacier across the lake, with Nugget Falls in the frame.

The path is wheelchair accessible and one of the easiest ways to take in the whole scene at once. Nearby, the Steep Creek Trail loops past raised boardwalks above the salmon stream.

The Moraine Ecology Trail crosses glacial features and salmon habitat on a quieter route through the area’s natural landscape. All three work for any fitness level.

The East Glacier Loop climbs to an overlook above the ice

If you want to work harder, the East Glacier Loop covers about 3.5 miles with roughly 500 feet of elevation gain.

You push through dense forest and climb wooden steps to reach an overlook that puts you close to the glacier and the surrounding terrain.

The West Glacier Trail runs about 3.4 miles one way along the western shore of the lake and brings you to the closest land-based point to the ice.

That route is rugged, with unmarked sections that require route-finding.

The Forest Service warns that walking on the glacier without proper equipment and an experienced guide is extremely dangerous.

Paddle a kayak past icebergs on the glacier’s lake

Mendenhall Lake formed from the glacier’s meltwater, and you can get on it by kayak or canoe. Guided paddle trips take you across the lake for close views of the glacier’s face and the mountains rising behind it.

Some tours combine the paddle with a glacier trek on the moraine, so you can walk near the edge of the ice after you come off the water. If you want something easier, rafting trips run downstream on the Mendenhall River.

You float past the glacier, through the forest, and under bald eagles perched in the trees.

Arctic terns fly 10,000 miles to nest near Photo Point

Every year, Arctic terns travel more than 10,000 miles from Antarctica to nest on the ground near Photo Point, right in view of the trail.

Mountain goats show up year-round on the slopes of Bullard Mountain and the surrounding peaks. Bring binoculars, or use the telescopes inside the visitor center to spot them.

Beavers have built dams and lodges along Steep Creek and nearby Dredge Lake, reshaping the waterways in ways you can see from the trail.

Bald eagles, porcupines, and waterfowl move through the recreation area, and the lake holds sockeye and coho salmon, Dolly Varden char, and cutthroat trout.

The retreating ice revealed trees that are 2,350 years old

Starting around 2012, the glacier pulled back far enough to uncover something no one expected.

Tree stumps and logs appeared still standing in their original growth positions, preserved under a layer of gravel beneath the ice.

Researchers at the University of Alaska Southeast dated some stumps between 1,200 and 1,400 years old, with the oldest specimens reaching about 2,350 years old.

The trees are likely spruce or hemlock based on the species growing in the area today.

Some still have intact root systems and traces of bark after centuries under the glacier, giving scientists clues about the climate and ecosystem that existed before the Little Ice Age.

The famous blue ice caves collapsed around 2023

For years, meltwater carved tunnels through the glacial ice and opened up caves with bright blue sculpted walls.

The color comes from intense compression that forces air bubbles out of the ice and absorbs every color of light except blue.

Those caves drew visitors from all over the world, but the glacier’s rapid retreat caused the most well-known ones to collapse around 2023.

Ice caves form, shift, and disappear within a single season depending on water flow and temperature. Guided helicopter treks still land on the upper ice, though cave access is never guaranteed.

Visit Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska

You can reach Mendenhall Glacier at the end of Glacier Spur Road, about 12 miles from downtown Juneau and roughly five miles from Juneau International Airport.

The visitor center’s 2026 summer hours run 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily from May through September. A day-use fee applies for visitors 16 and older, and federal recreation passes work here.

Trails and outdoor grounds stay open year-round, but the center cuts back to Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. between November and March.

Leave all food and drinks besides water in your car from May through September because of bear activity.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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