Tale of a Valley Glacier

The reason Matanauska Glacier is popular is because you can see it from a nicely paved highway, you can drive upto its snout, you can get to it from Anchorage in 2 hours! It is beautiful when you get there. It is beautiful on the way there and back along the Glen Highway.

Near the snout of Matanauska Glacier

Anchorage to Matanauska Glacier

As you can see my google maps is littered with points I have visited in Alaska. This is the reason one day when I mentioned to Hive account@livinguktaiwan that pinmapple didn't have that many pins in Alaska, and she responded that I have my work cut out! Well, I am hoping I am delivering that a little bit. I love Alaska. I have been there many times. Recently I was back there twice within 1 month. Actually come to think of it, yeah! I was there in June, July and August this year! Here is the good news, it is very safe to travel there during Covid times. Why? Not that there is no Covid there. There is. But there isn't that many people there. So typically where I go, I am either alone, or with a small number of individuals and all of those individuals are vaccinated. So I feel quite safe there. Also it is domestic travel for me (lucky me!), although it takes as much time as any transatlantic trip.

Anyways, back to Matanauska Glacier. There is a reason I put that dirty looking picture up-front. I want people to appreciate that not all glaciers are white. Lots of them are dirty black up close. This is due to the abraised dirt and soil (glacial till) that glacier picks up along its way. Matanauka Glacier is about 27 miles long, and originate from the Mercus Baker group of peaks. This low altitude picture from wikipedia give you the idea about the whole system.

Source

Critical things to note in this picture is the dark color medial and lateral moraines alternated by white ice. The black is also ice, but have a cover of rocks and dirt on top of it. Actually the Basal Ice Layer on most glacier appears black in color. I have taken a good picture below where you can see it in close up:

If you zoom in you can see numeous air bubble in front of my boot :) Air bubbles are a common feature in glacial ice, and give us geologists a glimpse into the climate where the ice was deposited. Most of the basal ice are from the last Ice Age by the way, so inside those air bubbles are Plio-Pleistocene air, when wooly Mammoths and Sabertooth tigers roamed the planet :) I don't know about you, but I have goosebumps thinking about it!

Here is the top level ice, with more modern air bubble in it :)

Getting there

Ok enough of the air bubble! The road to Matanauska is beautiful and if you have a good ride you can really do some drifting if you like along the way (kidding!). There is rarely anyone on this road.

That was my ride, and no, I didn't do much drifting!

But the Road is quite suitable for it, and I thought about drifting a lot while driving, as I was by myself and nobody was there to stop me! LOL. When you get there, you can't really walk into the glacier on your own. The land of the snout area belongs to the local Athabascan tribe. A company called Glacier Tour leased the land from the tribe and operate a guided touring service there. They charge you $65/person to visit. It may sound steep, but they employ lots of local students for the guiding service, and I didn't mind paying them at all. They really take care of you and take you all the way to the snout and beyond on the glacier!

Snout

You can see, it has been melting a lot. There is a little lake right at the snout. That wall of ice is about 200ft high. I mentioned it, as it is not easy to get a sense of scale from this picture. You can climb on top of the ice surface and see many glacial 'eratics', which are nothing but large boulders carried by ice and now standing on ice pedestal, quite cool huh?

Closing Thoughts

If you are in Anchorage, which is most common way people visit Alaska, Matanauska Glacier can be a very rewarding day trip. You don't need a rental car, if you choose not to, there are private buses and tour companies that offer the trip straight from Anchorage. But a rental car will let you enjoy the trip better and make you more flexible. I highly recommend it if you are in the area.

PS. No covid there :) (very little)