Up Close & Personal with Matanuska Glacier

Matanuska Glacier is a valley glacier in the Matanuska River Valley, 100 miles northeast of Anchorage along the Glenn Highway. It is 27 miles long and 4 miles wide, and is the largest glacier in the U.S. accessible by car. It flows about 1 foot per day.

Camped at Grand View RV Park along the Glenn Highway, we were about an 8 mile drive from the entrance to a private park providing access to the glacier.  Partly because glaciers are so fascinating, and partly because glaciers are disappearing so quickly, we eagerly drove over to visit it.

Here was our first view of Matanuska Glacier.  It seemed to stretch forever along the Matanuska River Valley and then up into the Chugach Mountains:

Interesting, access to the toe of the glacier is through a private park.  Once we drove down a steep gravel road from the highway, we had to check in at the headquarters to pay our fee and get a permit to drive on to the glacier:

Access to the glacier was over a number of rustic, primitive (though sturdy) wooden bridges crossing braids of the Matanuska River:

Here, the river started to show its wild nature:

From where we parked, the glacier was down in a valley, quite a hike away:

As we approached, we began to see the characteristic blue color of the glacier's ice and an outflow pond that empties into a branch of the river:

Throughout the outflow plain, a series of ponds reflected the surrounding mountains in waters that are blue-grey from glacial silt:

The trail to the glacier was marked by a series of orange cones, between which we could make out an ad hoc trail across the glacial moraine:

In certain areas, glacial moraine covering still-unmelted ice continued to feed silty streams of sand that flowed with the water that transports the sand down from the glacier:

Steadily we got closer to the glacier, and eventually got a clear view reflected in one of the outflow pools:

For some unexplained reason, someone had lost a waterproof boot that languished, unwanted, in the grey glacial muck of the outflow plain:

The water, ice, silt, gravel and rocks formed a moonscape that was difficult to describe:

It took us a while to realize that we had begun walking on glacial ice that was covered in rocks, gravel and silt.  Here, the ice was exposed in a crack that was about a foot deep:

Getting closer to the toe of the glacier, we crossed deeper crevasses of white-and-blue glacial ice lurking under the rocky surface:

We approached closer to the toe of the glacier:

Here, we could see numerous other hikers walking delicately across the glacier's slick ice.  They were minor black forms -- perhaps ant-size -- against the glacier's immense face:

The outflow pools loomed as large, flat, mirror-like lakes reflecting the mountains to the south:

This was about as close as we dared hike with bare boots.  We hadn't expected to be walking on the ice, so we failed to bring our crampons or micro-spikes.  We regretted that.  But this was such a unique chance to explore the immediate outflow of a glacier that we barely missed having a chance to walk on the glacier itself.

We hope to explore at least three more glaciers before we leave Alaska.  Each is unique and we know each will provide us a unique perspective and understanding on the unique environment created by glaciers here in the Northland.