Matanuska Glacier

Alaska

By Munish Gupta

November 22^nd, 2015

July 26th 2015

We (me and my wife ‘H’) had made reservations for a guided walk to and through the Matanuska Glacier in advance (surprise!). The guide company’s office was about two hours away from Anchorage. Woke up nice and early. Grabbed breakfast at the hotel buffet. And we were on our way. It had been raining lightly. We just hoped and prayed that it would not make the tour impossible or dangerous.

Driving out of Anchorage brought the words from the day before back to our mind - Anchorage is not Alaska. It did not take us long to realize that! After about half an hour, we saw vehicles sporadically only. Also passed couple of small towns on the way. It had stopped raining but was still cloudy.

The first stop we made on the way was for the following view! That is ‘Matanuska River’ in the first photograph.

THE TOURING COMPANY’S OFFICE

Checked in at the tour company office just in time. Our guide explained briefly the rules and details. Then we grabbed snow cleats for the shoes and helmets. Off we were to the trailhead in their van.

That is the view of Matanuska Glacier from the highway. There is a road leading to the parking from where you access the glacier. And there is an entrance fee to access that road.

This was the trailhead and parking. Saw this ‘nice’ RV parked there. The folks had set up table and were enjoying coffee (I think). My first thought was ‘Wow!’. Not a bad place to sit down and enjoy a meal. It’d be even nicer to just camp there and wake up to the view. Not to mention - being able to enjoy the view until sun sets around 11 PM!

As per our guide - Matanuska is a retreating glacier. It’s 26 miles long! It has been losing more ice every summer than it accumulates every winter.

The path was marked with orange cones. We walked without cleats over the stoney path until we arrived at a marked bench close to the glacier.

Put on the cleats. It did not take long to get used to the cleats. The guide kept explaining along the way. We also ran into ‘Black Ice’. It does not look like the white ice one gets used to in the surrounding at all. And that’s why it can be dangerous. It’s easy to not be careful and slip on it.

As we kept marching forward, we were now ‘in’ the glacier. It’s a breathtaking spectacle. It was surreal. Until then I had only read about it in the books or seen it in photographs and from the plane.

Made our way through the glacier.

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Saw some people climbing through the glacier at a distance.

As we made our way, came to a point where fresh water was making it’s way to the river. We were at the source! Emptied our bottles of ‘mineral’ water purchased from the grocery store and filled them up with the fresh water. It tasted just oh so different & fresh! It was unlike any other water I have had before.

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During the hike, we came at a point that needed some technical skill (walking with shoes perpendicular to each other) so as to avoid going through or falling into the water. I tried but could not do it. H did. Made our way back to the parking lot pretty comfortably but still in awe!

In the tour, apart from us, there was a pair of sixty year young girls. They had been all around in Alaska for a couple of weeks. From watching polar and grizzly bears in the natural habitats to well - walking on a glacier. Later that day they were also going for rafting in Matanuska river. They were, to say the least, inspiring!

Then we made our way back to the touring company’s office. H was going to do the river rafting too. I had opted not to. Since I had a couple of hours to kill - I decided to drive down the highway in the other direction.