Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Lyell and Maclure Glacier

A friend and I are planning on bagging Lyell late May/Early June. It seems to be fairly straightforward, just trail running on the JMT then hiking up the lyell Snowfield and a class 3 scramble at the end. However, we're also really interested in getting up close with the Maclure Glacier. Glaciers have always absolutely fascinated me and I wanted to visit the foot of the glacier where the ice caves into the glacier begin.

My question is has anyone done this? Is it reasonably close enough to the Lyell route where we can visit the glacier on the same day as bagging Lyell? I don't plan on actually getting inside or doing anything stupid, I just want to see the ice meeting the bedrock because it looks super cool. Also if anyone has a tips on navigation to get to the Maclure glacier from Lyell, that would be greatly appreciated.

I climbed Mt. Lyell and Mt. Maclure in August 1988. We used crampons and ice axe to cross the Lyell Glacier. Lyell was a straightforward class 3 rock climb, once we got off the glacier. Maclure was an easy class 2 scramble. I don’t understand your interest in the Maclure Glacier. The Lyell Glacier is the bigger deal.

A friend and I just completed the long and beautiful day hike (29.5 miles) of Mount Lyell on October 15th. Left at 4 am and summited by 2 pm, after wandering around looking for the way up after crossing the glacier. For us, the ridge at the col worked. Glacier was soft and wet on the way up; icier in the summit shadows. Crossing the moraine field took forever. The last 3 miles from the head of the valley probably took us 3 hours to work through. Got out of the moraines and to the valley floor by dusk and made it back to Tuolumne by 11:15 pm. We used micro spikes to cross the glacier; crampons likely would have been a bit better on way down. Amazing experience.

I heard the Lyell glacier is dead and has lost most of the features that make it a glacier while the Maclure glacier is still active. I saw from one of Yosemite's conservation videos that you can see the ice caves at the foot of the Maclure glacier and I don't know if that's true for Lyell.

That's awesome! How was the summit scramble?

It took us a hot minute to figure it out. Had to endure some exposure on the ledges from the col which drop off precipitously. We hugged the rock and stayed on the glaciar side and finally managed our way up. Plenty of cairns to guide the way once you're on the rock.