After our roadside adventures, we stopped at Matanuska Glacier (about 2 hours east of Anchorage). The thing is enormous--24 miles long and about 2 miles wide at its base. It takes about 250 years for the snow to move its way down, but when it does--wow! Talk about a ton of water being released. The Matanuska River is huge immediately below the glacier. We hiked it (obviously from the pictures), and at the beginning, I was picturing crevasses opening up and swallowing us whole--I had seen the original Transformers movie and did NOT want to meet up with Megatron. However, the owner of the property immediately below the glacier assured us that it was safe; because of the time of year and the density of the ice, he could drive his bulldozer on it. He then took us on a tour of the lower parts of the glacier--pointing out different formations and their causes (think lots of melting water). The bottom portion was covered in a very thin layer of silt and rock, but within 15 minutes of climbing we were standing on over 1000 feet of ice. One of my favorites is the glacial "erratics." That's any piece of debris/rock/etc., that the glacier picks up and move. There's a picture of Reagan on an erratic that moved several feet in the past week (the rock, not Reagan).
Of course the kids LOVED it. After we got pictures, DJ suggested that Josh lick the ice for a picture--that turned into a free-for all. I didn't participate--not too fond of the muddy ice concept, but the kids adored it. Every time I turned around someone was licking the ice. DJ even got a picture (which I've refused to post) that looks a little bit obscene (4 kids in a row licking ice? Yuck!) A little further in, there's a glacial-fed lake (on top of the glacier), that was absolutely stunning; I can't imagine how glorious it would be on a sunny day. And of course, the blue ice was to die for!
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