2012
Flying in and landing on a glacier is exciting. Equipped both with wheel landing gear and with skis that can be lowered below the wheels from the cockpit, the pilot’s greatest concern is maintaining depth perception against the ice’s glare.
Ruth Glacier, Denali’s largest, appears to be an interstate, with numerous smaller glaciers feeding into it much like interchanges. Very deceptive from the air, the glacier’s center line is actually a crevice, which on larger glaciers is very wide and often extremely deep, posing much difficulty for climbers to span.
Meanwhile, Ruth Glacier is continuously sliding down the mountain at a rate of about 3 meters per year.
