Picture yourself a short drive away from the state capital, trees at your back, and in front of you, across an iceberg-dotted lake, an enormous ice field flowing down the valley in a glacier that ends at lake's edge. Welcome to the Mendenhall Glacier, 13 miles from downtown Juneau, Alaska. If you've taken the paved trail to a glacier overlook, you can glance to your right and see the visitor center, set in a cliff above the valley floor. The huge windows that make up the curving wall of the center offer an uninterrupted view of the glacier. The center was built in 1962, the first visitor center in the National Forest System. The original structure was primarily a large observatory where people could get out of the rain and look at the glacier. It was designed to accommodate 23,000 people a year. Over the years a few exhibits were added. Thirty-five years after it first opened, the center was hosting over 250,000 people a year. Between 1997 and 1999 the building was renovated and enlarged to include an exhibit gallery and theater.