Matanuska Glacier, Alaska

Aren’t glaciers huge, blue-white, glimmering, blinding fields of ice? That’s what I thought, but the image of my mind was pretty far off the mark. First of all, the land-edge of a glacier simply looks like dirt. You go farther on and farther in to experience not flat fields, but beautiful, spiky points of aquamarine-colored, Elsa-castle style ice. Going farther is dangerous due to unpredictable sinkholes and crevasses, so you do need a guide. We were fortunate enough to visit the wonders of Alaska’s Matanuska glacier in both September 2021 and June 2022. Of course at 27 miles long and 4 miles wide, we only walked a tiny part of this glacier.

June 2022, view from the parking area

Matanuska is not a public park. It’s the largest glacier accessible by car in the United States and is only 100 miles from Anchorage. To get there you must drive through private land, over a couple of rickety bridges, then pay a fee to go on a tour (signing your life away on waiver forms of course). Strapping on a helmet and pulling a set of microspikes over your shoes is mandatory. This is all worth it for a view that most people don’t have an opportunity to see. And of course, it’s a view we can’t take for granted as climate change speeds up glacier melt.