Mountaineering on the Root Glacier

Starting in the town of Kennicott you'll hike on the trail leading north outside of the town for a mile and a half.

The trail will end at the edge of the glacier and this is where you put on your crampons. I would also suggest putting on your crampons at the edge of the glacier and not while on it to avoid possibly slipping on the ice!

If you have not used crampons before I would suggest you get a guide from town and do the tour as type of hike is not for beginners! They will be able to help tremendously and will make the experience possible and enjoyable.

This is where you get to decide how adventurous you want to be. There are no trails on the glacier so make a mental note of what the surrounding area, where the trail ended, looks like. You can chose to traverse any of the four combined glaciers but I chose to head north, towards the ice-wall, while hugging the side of the mountain that your original trail was on.

Here you can chose to walk for one mile or ten (for the sake of route data, I picked a midpoint at 6), it is entirely up to you! If you are heading the same direction as I did the ice-wall is located about ten miles away but I would not encourage doing the entire hike unless you rose with sun and have enough supplies for the entire day.

Disclaimer: If you do go towards the ice-wall I wouldn't get any closer then a mile as ice chunks the size of houses regularly come down off of it.

Regardless of how you go you'll be able to see some of the most beautiful abstract contrasts throughout the glaciers. The lines of black soil and blue ice make for spectacular photography.