Carbon Glacier Trail

Pat Leahy, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Image Size Adjusted

General Information

Elevation:
14,411 ft
Etymology:
Peter Rainier
Native name:
Tahoma, Tacoma (Southern Puget Sound Salish)
Parent range:
Cascade Range
Last eruption:
November 21 to December 24, 1894
Climbing First ascent
1870 by Hazard Stevens and P. B. Van Trump
Easiest route:
Rock/ice climb via Disappointment Cleaver
Length:
14.7 miles
Elevation gain
8986 feet
Rating:
5.0

Carbon Glacier is located on the north slope of Mount Rainier and is the source of the Carbon River. The snout at the glacier terminal moraine is at about 3,500 feet (1,100 m) above sea level, making it the lowest-elevation glacier in the contiguous United States. The glacier also has the greatest length (5.7 miles (9.2 km)), thickness (700 ft (210 m)) and volume (0.2 cubic miles (0.83 km3)) of any U.S. glacier outside of Alaska.

Carbon Glacier is accessible from the northwest Carbon River entrance of Mount Rainier National Park, just outside the town of Carbonado, Washington. The glacier is accessible on foot via an 8-mile (13 km) hike from the Carbon River entrance of Mt. Rainier National Park.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Carbon Glacier", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0

brewbooks from near Seattle, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Image Size Adjusted
brewbooks, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Image Size Adjusted