Picnic on a Glacier

The Matanuska glacier (or however you spell it) is about 100 miles out of Anchorage. To spare you all the details you could probably find on Wikipedia involving the formation, location, and all sorts of other completely unnecessary, yet pretty cool, facts on glaciers, I will just tell you about why I love the Mat. And try to use shorter sentences in the process!

Its really not that far away. And its not like you are driving 2 hours down a long straight road. The scenery is gorgeous once you get past Palmer. Though I did have trouble with that, as I would rather look around than concentrate on avoiding the back end of the slow camper in front of me.

Its not too bad of a hike to get to the actual glacier. My parents are not the most decorated gold metal athletes in the world, and I felt confident that they would be able to make it to the glacier and back at a pace that suited them. It gets a little muddy and/or slick at times, but if you are careful, its not a problem!

Its a blast to explore! Once on the Glacier, we carefully picked a path to explore a little bit as well. We found some cool features, and no one fell or got stuck in a crevasse. The only reason my whole backside got wet is because I sat down on a ice ledge with dad for a picture.

Bring an empty water bottle to fill. Man, I love glacier water! nothing like drinking ice cold water right from the source. Is it perfectly purified? I dunno. Do I care? Not really. If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger, right?

Wear shoes with good traction. Preferably hiking boots, not indoor soccer shoes. It wasn't too bad this trip, as we didn't do too much adventuring. But I would definitely have loved a little more traction.

Wear gloves! You might look like a whimpy popsicle walking out to the glacier with a hat, scarf and gloves, but the gloves really give you more mobility on the ice. Its not light and fluffy like snow if you want to grab on to something for stability. It keeps you from tearing up your hands, and everyone else will wish they were cool like you with gloves.



After picnicing on the ice, perching on the edge of a glacial water fall, and prancing around on the ancient ice formation (gee, aren't you glad I stopped with the "p" activities there??), we headed to my friends' house for dinner. They are around 70mile, so it gave a perfect break in the drive back. We stayed till around 10, and headed back to town with an hour or so of daylight left to guide us. When we were close to Anchorage, I spotted two different momma moose leading their calves (one single, two twins for a total of 5 moose) in the dusk, all within a quarter mile. It was a very nice ending to the day!