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The boys and I took a ride out to Matanuska
Glacier. The glacier is about a two hour ride northeast of
Anchorage. There are some great views of the glacier right
from the highway (check
out the pictures).
We also went to the glacier park which is a
privately owned piece of land that provides the easiest access
to the face of the glacier. After leaving the public road
(and paying a hefty entrance fee) you drive about 2 miles on a
private road that takes you to a parking lot. From the
parking lot, you hike about 20 minutes ending up near the face of the
glacier.
You are actually on the glacier as soon as
you walk off of the parking lot, however, the ice is covered by
dirt and gravel close to the parking lot. As you approach
the face of the glacier along the marked path, the ice begins to
reveal itself under your feet. Parts of the ice are so
clear that you can see several inches into the ice.
Once you get near the face of the glacier,
you see a sign that warns you not to go any further without a
professional guide. There are many dangers. You can
fall into a crevasse; you can slip into a pool of near freezing
water; or the glacier can "calve" (break) and large chunks of
ice can crush you. We stayed in the "safe zone" and got
some really cool pictures.
I continued to warn the boys to stay on the
marked path as we walked to and from the glacier. Even in
the safe area, there were some dangers if you did not stay on
the path. As we got close to the parking lot, I decided to
take a shortcut to get in front of the boys. As soon as I
left the path, the ground started to move. The surface was
hard, but the ground I was walking on moved up and down about 6
inches with each step. I quickly tried to get back to the
path and then I found myself sinking in Jello-like mud. In
just a second or two, I was up to my knees in thick mud and
still sinking. I frantically clawed at the side of the
path and pulled myself back up to the path which was about at
waist level when I began to sink and ended up being a foot or so
above my head before I could pull myself out.
Wow ... that was most scared I have been
since our moose encounter when we first moved up here.
Lesson learned - STAY ON THE MARKED PATH!!!
Another significantly less exciting
experience occurred at the glacier. We forgot to bring
sweatshirts. As you can imagine ... when you approach the
glacier, the air around the glacier is cooled well below the
ambient temperature due to the ice. The ambient
temperature before getting anywhere near the glacier was about
65. When we got to the parking lot to begin the hike, the
temperature dropped to 49 (according to the thermometer reading
in our car). As we hiked closer to the glacier, I would
guess that the temperature was in the low forties, or high
thirties. It was cold!!! The other visitors were
walking around in full winter gear. The boys and I were
casually walking on the glacier in our t-shirts. What a
great dad I am!
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