MENDENHALL GLACIER

blue ice sheet, 12 miles (19 km) long, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide, and more than 100 feet (30 m) high at its terminus. It flows from the southern half of the huge Juneau Icefield, which begins in the Boundary Ranges in southeastern Alaska, U.S. A relic of the Little Ice Age that lasted until the mid-18th century, the Mendenhall Glacier is an example of a receding glacier (about 90 feet a year), displaying raw glacier moraine with exposed remnants of a long-buried forest. It lies adjacent to the Tongass National Forest and is the only glacier in the region that is readily accessible by highway the year round. Originally named Auke, for the Auke Indians, it was renamed in 1892 for Thomas Corwin Mendenhall of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Adjacent Mendenhall Lake began to form about 1900 and has become about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) long, 1 mile (1.6 km) wide, and 115 feet (35 m) deep near the centre of the glacier's face.