Black Rapids Glacier trip: Day 1

Starting out: this is a photo from the frozen creek that drains the Black Rapids at Sean's van.  It was an incredibly windy day out, which is pretty common along the Delta River.  The Delta River (also frozen) runs along the road in front of Sean and Nate.

Cramponing up the creek.  It was windy enough that our sleds were getting blown uphill on the ice.  note the streaks of blowing snow in the foreground.

Sean hauling his sled up the creek.  The haze in the background is blowing snow.

Eventually, the creek runs out into a series of beautiful frozen ponds in the moraine.  In some places you can see the bottom.  In others, you can see bubbles and fractures shown below.

Bubbles and fractures in the ice.

Below these fractures there's a big chunk of dirty ice that must have been floating in the pond before it froze.

All good things come to an end.  Eventually it gets too rocky to pull sleds, so you have to pack it all for about a mile or so.  Here's Sean packing up the 90 or so lbs of gear to pack it over the moraine.

Nate and Tommy hauling their gear through the moraine.

After the mile or so of hauling 90 lb packs over sharp rocks, we were rewarded by the glacier.  Finally we figured out why we brough these damn sleds!  Here's Sean, Tom and Nate packing up their sleds.  From here we roped up and skiid a few miles to our first camp.

Here's a view of the Black Rapids from the moraine.  Our first camp was up around the corner and out of sight.