Just before the summer solstice, I went with some friends to this little glacier north and east of Skagway. The ferry ride up Lynn Canal was delightful, as was the White Pass and Yukon Railroad trip from town to the trailhead partway up White Pass.
Humping our backpacks from the train, we set off on a nice trail, extremely well-maintained by a local guiding company. The boards and little bridges were made of sturdy 4×12 lumber, with no breaks or popped nail heads, and there were no mudholes; what a change from Juneau!
It was only about a mile and half to the Forest Service cabin, which we had rented for two nights. The trail passes through a couple of small meadows, but most of it covers a transitional forest that shifts from mostly spruce to mostly subalpine fir. Bears had left evidence that they use the trail, too. The cabin is located above the banks of the Skagway River at an altitude of about 2,100 feet. That river was roaring in June, but it carried less sediment load than the creek that came from Laughton Glacier and joined the river just upstream of the cabin.
A rougher trail leads from the cabin area up toward the glacier, over heaps of gravel and boulders of ground moraine. We soon left the trees behind and passed through thickets of alder, eventually emerging onto barren till. Here the only plant life is colorful lichens, a few scattered mosses, and an occasional venturesome river-beauty fireweed. The trail is very boulder-y, not easy going for ancient legs, although youngsters hopped about like crickets. On both sides of the wide valley, high lateral moraines sweep upward. Above them are forested, rocky ridges, adorned by the spires of fir.
Then, dead ahead is the boulder-strewn toe of the glacier, backed by a view of the spectacular Sawtooth Range. Angular 7,000-foot peaks and knife-edge ridges poke out of the snow and ice. Rugged and beautiful on a bright, sunny day, the Range is arguably even more visually arresting when clouds boil up behind the peaks and tumble over, swirling and dissipating as they descend. The snowy slopes are decorated by the curving paths of falling snowballs, small debris fans and some slab-breaks that may soon give way.
Laughton is a small alpine glacier, formerly coming off the Juneau icefield but now separated. Since the year 2000, it has retreated, advanced, and retreated again, and since that year it has averaged 1.2 to 1.7 miles long (about one-tenth the length of the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau). Similarly, its areal extent has varied, covering roughly two to four square miles. Visitors regularly scramble up the rock-covered toe of the glacier to a look-out point closer to the Sawtooth peaks.
Bird life near the cabin was scant. For Juneau folks, the lack of ravens and jays seemed odd. I heard a Wilson’s warbler, a yellow warbler, a Pacific wren, a varied thrush, and a robin, some hermit thrushes and a Swainson’s thrush. The first thrush we saw looked like a slightly pale hermit thrush, but it made a strange, sharp and loud call (which I’ll describe as ek-ek-ek-ek-ek) as it rapidly flew in a straight line from one perch to another. I’ve never heard either a hermit or a Swainson’s make such a call.
In the area near the cabin, the upright cores of last year’s cones were visible near the tops of the fir trees; the cones had disintegrated, dropping the scales and releasing the seeds. Few firs here bore new cones, although I think cone crops at lower elevations may be better. Spruces, on the other hand, were generally making good cone crops.
At the understory level, I saw a new kind of horsetail, which had branched branches, giving it a lacy look. A good find was a wide expanse of blooming twayblade orchids (Listera cordata) composed of both reddish and green individuals. Some readers may recall that twayblades were studied by Darwin, whose detailed observations of these tiny flowers revealed that when a small insect touches an inner part of the flower, the flowers blasts out a sticky mass of pollen onto the unsuspecting bug’s eyes or head.
Altogether a fine exploratory trip, great weather, and good company.
• Mary F. Willson is a retired professor of ecology.
A sharp ridge emerges dramatically from the rolling clouds.
