Sharp pinnacles of ice thrust up from the surface of Matanuska Glacier. (Amanda Mortimer)

I heard a rumor that you could drive right to the toe of Matanuska Glacier. Turns out that rumor was true…

This past Sunday, my husband and I did just that. After a wonderfully scenic, hundred mile drive northeast out of Anchorage on the Glenn Highway, we arrived at the privately owned glacier access road. The road owners have erected a toll booth, of sorts, where you have to stop and everyone must sign a waiver and pay the entrance fee ($20 per person).  Once through the gate, the graded dirt road continues down into the valley, over the moraine and stops at a parking area on a mound of sediment. Orange cones mark a trail from there out to the white ice and some picnic tables. A sign posted on one of the tables reminds you that walking further onto the glacier is done at your own risk. Spying some more picnic tables on a ridge in the distance, we decided to continue on. Without the aid of additional cones, we were left to find our own way across the rock strewn ice. We picked our way over and around icy hills that sizzled with the sound of air bubbles, long trapped in the ice, escaping as the sun-warmed ice melted. We jumped across melt-water streams and channels with iridescent glacial milk forming intricate patterns in the water as it ran down to eventually form the Matanuska River. We saw sections of ice covered with finger sized holes drilled into the glacier by dark stones that had absorbed the heat of the sun. We walked along walls of ice showing the foliation, or banding, of layers of ice and trapped sediment.  Each ridge and stream bringing us tantalizingly closer to the towering seracs and blue ice crevasses which, at least on this trip, would stay off-limits. Lacking the knowledge and proper gear, we thought it best not to take any chances. Perhaps on a future trip, I’ll be properly outfitted and have a guide that can safely lead me out to touch the icy pinnacles of the Matanuska Glacier, but for now, my zoom lens will have to do.

Iridescent patterns form as silt laden runoff (also called glacier milk, or rock flour) meanders downstream.

Dark rocks and debris warmed by the sun drill melt holes into the ice of Matanuska Glacier

Dark lines of sediment are exposed along the icy ridges of Matanuska Glacier.