A Backpack Cross-Country Traverse of the Minarets

Climbers have a name for each and every one of those rock spires.

Iceberg Lake

A Cross-Country Traverse of the Minarets, August/September 2006

Iceberg Lake got its name by the fact that snow fields run into the lake and small icebergs break off and float around the lake. It could have just as easily been called "Spire Lake" for all the rocky spires around the lake. Iceberg Lake is a much more attractive lake than Cecile Lake, with its friendlier chores, fair camps, grassy shores, snow fields and situated in a huge bowl surrounded with the spires of the Minarets.

The beautiful alpine tree-line outlet of Iceberg Lake. Note the Cecile Lake trail skirting the shore.  There are a few exposed but level tent sites here and there.

It is a true timberline lake at ~9783 feet with a few scattered  picturesque trees sprouting out of rock and alpine lawn. Like most alpine lakes, the water is clear as crystal.

Looking from the north-west ridge over iceberg lake towards the wall below Cecile Lake. You can see where the "icebergs" most commonly break off down there.

This is the side of Clyde Minaret that is most often climbed. Nice glacier smoothed rock on the shoreline. Way up there, real glaciers above a permanent snow field.

When I was there in 1999, I hiked up to the ridge above the lake and went down to the outlet. We will take a look at what is up there before going down to Ediza Lake on the Iceberg Lake trail.