Matanuska Glacier

The Matanuska Glacier is about a two hour drive from Anchorage at mile marker 101 of the Glen Highway. 
The glacier is about 3-4 miles wide and 27 miles long and cost $20 to enter and do a self guided tour or you can pay $50 for the guided tour.

This day trip started out a little rocky but turned out to be a really awesome day.  By rocky I mean that I almost missed my ride. I was supposed to meet Sarah at Thunderbird Falls, I was running a little late and Sarah almost left without me.  Sarah is a temporary here too and we are both determined to see as much of Alaska as we can while here.  But she apparently has more contacts than I because she just went King Salmon fishing and caught the biggest one on the boat!  She was nice enough to share a couple fillets with her hiking buddy..... me.  :)

Our first view of the glacier was at about mile marker 98

The very front of the glacier is about 3 miles wide but is about 4 miles wide and 27 miles long according to the information on the Alaska State Parks web site.  Mount Marcus Baker, 13,176 feet high is in the background.

Arriving at mile marker 101 there is no giant sign saying that you have arrived and we were not even sure if we were at the right spot or not.  I intended to snap a picture on the way out but........  The road down was just a steep gravel road that leads to a small gift shop where you sign the two page waiver and pay either the $20 for do what you want tour or $50 to walk v e r y   s l o w l y and listen to someone telling you be careful it is slippery, be careful on this bridge, be careful of this rock........ lol, no thanks!  Maybe when I'm 80 something.

Once you pay your money it is another two mile drive down to the glacier.  It was warm, about 70 degrees so it was tee shirt weather, on the glacier it was a little cooler but a fleece sweater kept me warm.  As you approach the glacier there is a lot of rock and ice mix

This can be really slippery still even with the rock on top so this is about the time we put on our crampons which we were able to borrow from the State of Alaska, little employee benefit I guess.  A few more views as you progress on the glacier:

This last picture was taken at a good angle and is really not as technical as it looks but it is a very cool picture.  It was still a really long way down that crevasse.

It is really hard to put into words the beauty of the glacier, these pictures do not do it justice.  It is even harder to express the inner feeling of being here and being able to see first hand these incredible sites.


One last surprise for the day, on the way down a group of Japanese tourist waived us down to them, really could not have gone any other direction but we were greeted with a climbers cup with a small chunk of glacier ice and a couple choices of whiskey in those small airline type bottles.  As we accepted and drank it was being filmed by a professional looking camera.  I think we are now part of a tourist advertisement or at least somebody's home movie. Oh well it was the perfect ending to this day trip.

It turned out to be an awesome adventure!  When I leave in September I will be taking the same route to the lower 48 and just might do it again.