Mendenhall Lake is a
proglacial lake
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...
in the
Mendenhall Valley
The Mendenhall Valley (historically Mendenhall, colloquially The Valley) is the drainage area of the Mendenhall River in the U.S. state of Alaska. The valley contains a series of neighborhoods, comprising the largest populated place within the ...
at the 1962 terminus of
Mendenhall Glacier
Mendenhall Glacier (in Tlingit language “Sít”) is a glacier about long located in Mendenhall Valley, about from downtown Juneau in the southeast area of the U.S. state of Alaska. The glacier and surrounding landscape is protected as part ...
, north of the
Juneau Airport in the
Coast Mountains
The Coast Mountains (french: La chaîne Côtière) are a major mountain range in the Pacific Coast Ranges of western North America, extending from southwestern Yukon through the Alaska Panhandle and virtually all of the Coast of British Columbia ...
. It is the source of the short
Mendenhall River The Mendenhall River (Tlingit language, Lingít: ''Woosh Ilʼóox̱ʼu Héen'') is an Alaskan river north of Juneau, Alaska, Juneau in the Mendenhall Valley. The river begins at the Mendenhall Lake, at the base of the Mendenhall Glacier.
Rafting o ...
.
[ The lake is included in the ]Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area Mendenhall may refer to:
People
* Mendenhall (surname)
Places United Kingdom
* Mendenhall (Minoll), Wiltshire, England United States
*Mendenhall Glacier, near Juneau, Alaska
*Mendenhall Lake, near Juneau, Alaska
* Mendenhall River, near Juneau, A ...
of the Tongass National Forest
The Tongass National Forest () in Southeast Alaska is the largest U.S. National Forest at . Most of its area is temperate rain forest and is remote enough to be home to many species of endangered and rare flora and fauna. The Tongass, which i ...
.[Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area Planning](_blank)
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency inc ...
Name
Like other geographic features with Mendenhall in their title, Mendenhall Lake is named for physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
and meteorologist
A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...
Thomas Corwin Mendenhall
Thomas Corwin Mendenhall (October 4, 1841 – March 23, 1924) was an American autodidact physicist and meteorologist. He was the first professor hired at Ohio State University in 1873 and the superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey ...
.
Local name derived from the Mendenhall Glacier and published in 1962 by United States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...
. In 1909, the lake was called McCush Lake by miners because Neil McCush had mining property near it (DeArmond, 1957, p. 31).[
]
References
External links
*
Lakes of Juneau, Alaska
Lakes of Alaska
Proglacial lakes
{{JuneauAK-geo-stub