Castner Glacier Caves

The hike to Castner Glacier is easy and straightforward. The trail doesn't gain much in elevation and you just follow the creek to the glacier cave entrance. The entire valley where the glacier lives is full of sharp and incredible mountains. It is not recommended that you enter inside the glacier caves, however, if you do please use caution and don't go inside too far. The frozen ground inside the cave is where the creek is and in some parts towards the back the ice was very thin. The trailhead is located right off the side of the Richardson Highway at about milepost 217. There is plenty of room for vehicles in several pullouts and the actual trailhead is on the east side of the highway marked by a highly visible path. The glacier is located on BLM land (Bureau of Land Management). If you go to the BLM link for Castner Glacier, they say it's only a 1/2 mile hike to the glacier - this is not correct. It may have been 1/2 mile before but the glacier has since receded and it is now just barely over one mile to the caves. The hike to Castner Glacier is easy and straightforward. All you do is follow Castner Creek for about 1.1 miles until you come to the glacier caves at the front of Castner Glacier. I hiked this in the winter so I couldn't comment on summer hiking conditions but hiking on top of the hard ice from the creek made things so much easier! The entire valley is beautiful and full of sharp and crazy looking mountains. I would love to come back and spend a few days hiking around and even hike farther up the glacier valley to the small Thayer Hut. Even in the winter this hike was somewhat crowded. There must have been over a hundred people on the trail that day. Granted, it was a Saturday, but this glacier is literally in the middle of nowhere! It's more than a two hour drive from Fairbanks and the largest nearby city is Delta Junction with about 1,000 residents. Castner Glacier is also one of the more easily accessible glaciers in the area so it makes sense why many people would be visiting this one more. You will see the massive glacier in the distance and it just looks like piles of dirt and rocks. All the ice is below this and a cave is hidden from view. The first thing I did was hike on top of the glacier to get a better view. Hiking on top of the glacier is not recommended by the BLM because you never know where weak ice is and you could easily fall into a crevasse. Also, going inside the caves is not recommended. If I visited in the summer I wouldn't enter inside the caves but it would still be awesome to see. Keep in mind that if you go inside the caves, you are hiking on the actual frozen creek and in some spots towards the very back you can hear the running water below you. The ice is slippery but it wasn't so slippery that I was falling over every five seconds. There are plenty of small rocks and dirt for grip. But if you want, bring some of those metal yaktrax things to add a little more traction to your shoes. The cave opening is fairly large and you will quickly notice the amazing blues and greens in the ice. If you look closely, you can even see trapped air bubbles, rocks, and sand. Since this is a pet friendly hike, many people brought their dogs and the dogs seemed to be having as much fun as the humans were. The cave echoed with dogs barking, kids screaming, and adults taking lots of photos. I'm not the best at judging distance underground but if I had to guess, I would say that the caves went in about 500+ feet. Towards the back I could hear running water and didn't want to venture past that point - safety first! Bring a flashlight if you want to venture in towards the back. Even though the outside temperature was near 50 degrees, at the back of the cave it was closer to 30 degrees. You could see tons of ice crystals hanging from the ceiling and colorful rocks and pebbles frozen in time inside the ice. Visiting the Castner Glacier Cave was really fun! The hike was easy. The cave was awesome! Bring the kids, dogs, neighbors and visit this amazing place!