12-mile long Mendenhall Glacier ! Awesome eh?
10.8.05 A little glaciers 101: Glaciers often are described as advancing or retreating. A glacier advances when it accumulates more snow and ice than it loses from melting. If it's melting faster than its building up, then it recedes, that is, it grows shorter -- it doesn't move backward. Stationary glaciers maintain an even accumulation/melting ratio. Most glaciers found on an Inside Passage tour are retreating -- this Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, for instance, is retreating about 30 feet per year.