Matanuska Glacier 2013

This summer my friend Robert came up to visit so i went through the regular routine of taking my able bodied friends out to the most convenient of the locally impressive glaciers, the Matanuska. The two previous summers i went out there with my friend Jimmy. Over the years i have become bored with the formations in the front of the glacier (especially since so many of them have melted away) and so the second time Jimmy visited we set out to get around all the big ice fins that dominate the front of the glacier. But in his excitement, Jimmy got crazy and sprained his ankle trying to jump somewhere in crampons.

During that trek Jimmy and i spent a lot of time and energy investigating dead ends in an effort to try and get around the fins. In that area up front all the crevasses run longitudinally down the length of the ice, and they have a nasty habit of merging together. Still, through trial and error we made a lot of headway and by the time we decided we should turn around our goal was in sight. It was very frustrating, especially for Jimmy.

I'm always reminded when i arrive at the parking area that it's definitely worth the 2 hour drive to get out there. From here onward scale becomes difficult to keep in perspective. You could fit thousands and thousands of people on the dirt here in front of the glacier.

This year, since i was returning with Robert, i wanted to continue towards that previous year's goal. I decided the best way to do that was to save all the time Jimmy and i lost on our first attempts when we ended up going the wrong way over and over. Due to the distance involved and not knowing how far we would have to go beyond the previous year's position I had to sort of cheat Robert out of the typical tour to the famous lake and the closeup views of the seracs above it.

It takes a long time to get out to the point where Jimmy and i turned around. It's not fun glacier travel either. It's across at least a mile of loose, somewhat treacherous, veneer of rubble on dirty melting ice. One step might be like stepping on a millimeter of loose gravel on a ramp of wet ice. The next step might be knee deep in mud. The next step the might be onto good sized rocks that collapse into a hole underneath you. Robert had never been on anything like this, so i doubt his first impressions were good. I don't know because i never ever ask my friends how they are feeling.

We walked over a mile up the debris field before we found a way back onto the clean ice.

Robert gets ready to put on crampons for the first time.

This was where left the rocks and climbed onto the good stuff. Maybe this picture will help you keep in mind that everything is much bigger than it looks. And also realize that this is not ice ending in rubble, this is a pile of rubble on top of ice that is at this point hundreds of feet thick.

This place reminded me of Death Valley, near Zabriski Point

Once we were off the rocks the glacier finally opened up into the ideal ice traveling conditions i've always dreamed about on the Matanuska. The landscape stretched onward and open for miles into the distance.

The sum things up, this trip paid off. Eventually we found a way back onto the clean ice, and from that point onward it was fantastic traveling. The glacier opened up into expansive "ice dunes" for lack of a better word. We found a beautiful stream, followed it for quite some time, and kept going until our feet started to hurt from the crampons. From where we were it looked like you could continue several more miles without any major obstacles. Of course, you never know on a glacier what is up ahead.

Robert skirts along the edge of a maze of large "ice dunes." He had a hard time remembering that it's all rock hard solid ice. All the snow was long gone.

By the time we turned around we had walked three miles up the glacier, much farther than i had ever been. Robert had been on ice before in Glacier National Park, but Alaskan glaciers are in another league, and what we did was a pretty hardcore introduction for not involving ropes. Actually, a rope might have been advisable at the point where we tried to get back onto the dirty ice.

We were lucky that day with the weather. The valleys on either side of us were socked in with clouds, but over the glacier it was nice and sunny most of the time.

Eventually we found a stream of crystal aquamarine. That's pretty much the best thing you can find on a glacier, so we followed it.

Following the stream paid off handsomely when we found this incredible pool.

Here's another view of the awesome pool. My 17mm lens wasn't quite enough for the job, but i managed to squeeze Robert into the top of the frame. Where i'm standing is the same level as him, but he's kind of squished in this perspective. It was a good sized wall around the pool. We couldn't find a good way down anywhere nearby.

We continued onward and eventually crossed over to within reach of the west side of the glacier, where it looked much easier to get back towards the front than the route we took on the East side. Unfortunately it would be to risky to try that from here, not knowing how to get over the mouth of the river at the toe, which is generally a jumble of ice cliffs.