East Glacier Loop (Mendenhall Glacier)

The East Glacier Trail leads beyond the crowds at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center into the forest and to the glacier landscape above the Mendenhall Valley. The visitor center, set on a hill on the south shore of Mendenhall Lake, was the Forest Service's first-ever visitor center, built in the 1960s.The lake and glacier are the premier destination for the thousands of cruise-ship tourists who visit Juneau, but they don't venture much beyond the visitor center and the short trails just outside it, leaving the mountains above the center very quiet in comparison. Mendenhall Glacier flows 12 miles off the Juneau Icefield, terminating on the floor of the Mendenhall Valley, the home of a Juneau bedroom community. The Mendenhall is Alaska's southernmost road-accessible glacier, not to mention the only one in a suburban setting.