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Published: August 31st 2010
Today, after a very late start (that shower was too fantastic! I am definitely getting fixated with running water.) We headed for the city of Valdez, known for the worst oil spill until recently. I have been going crazy looking for moose. Every other tourist brags about the large numbers of moose they’ve seen, but until today I’ve been at zero. Well wonder of wonders, today I saw my first one close to the city of Wasilla - and you know who lives there! It was a cow and I was truly shocked how massive she was. I was so very excited. I should tell you my moose-hunting story: when the kids were around 10-12 (Christy didn’t go with us) we went to Michigan to join my brother Dick and Susan for a road trip to Niagara Falls. My main objective was to see --Moose; “No problem as we’re in moose country the entire Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Canadian trip,” he asserted. Well, we never saw one moose. This trip the same brother promised me we’d see moose but now I don’t have the warm fuzzy. Well in Wasilla my faith in him was restored!!
My brother has
a really big “thing” about glaciers. So a few hours after Wasilla, we turn in to see the Matanuska Glacier. Down a dirt road with huge pot holes we went. I about screamed when I saw another moose close to the road. My scream must have scared her as she quickly disappeared -- around to the backside of her mother - and mom was the biggest creature I’ve seen up close and personal!!! Mom put her ears back which is a major sign that moose is about to charge. As we pulled away, I was concerned about the A-liner towing behind us getting the full brunt of mom’s fury, but moose have a short attention span, and she probably didn’t recognize what scared her little darling.
We finally arrived at the parking lot to walk into the glacier area. The glacier is a valley glacier and blue and majestic. But all around the glacier was the glacier dump, which looks like a place on the Star Wars movie screen. It is boulders, silt, rocks, and a tallus mess. We walked a mile up, down, and over glacier runoff streams; what helped us walk were the “ice grippers” that Dick
had us strap on our shoes and Jeff’s ski poles. What was so weird was all the Star Wars dump, which we walked on to get to the glacier, was still sitting on a ice mass under it, which was melting and splitting off. The closer we got to the glacier, the less “rubble” was on it. Just before we stepped on the glacier, the “ground” was just black ice with rocks on it. The Matanuska Glacier moves a foot a day, but also melts a foot a day so stays in the same place. I know the earth is old, but it felt strange walking on something that had been formed
thousands of years ago. It was wonderful.
Tonight we are in a beautiful campground, The Northern Lights in Glenellen. The two previous nights we stayed in Anchorage, in an apartment style campground, which was straight out of a TV show. Many campers live there full time and probably their souls need more space as there was yelling and threats, with verbal fighting about requesting a dog to be put down for biting a man.
The wonderful shower, seeing 3 moose, 2 foxes, 2 Trumpeter Swans, a
MATANUSKA GLACIER 2
THE GLACIER - THE BLUE WHITE PART OF THE GLACIER IS 4 MILES WIDE - THIS ICE YOU SEE HAS BEEN TRAVELING DOWN THE GLACIAL VALLEY SINCE THE TIME OF SOCRATES!!! THAT'S A LONG TIME TO TRAVEL 24 MILES!!!gorgeous lacier, rain, sunshine, a full unbelievable rainbow, and meeting new “friends’ made it a wonderful day. Life is good.
Marilyn
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