Our introduction to Alaska was a strange one. Having flown into to Anchorage from Seattle we were all set for our connecting flight north, heading to Fairbanks. It was clear from the minute we got off the plane that the plan was not going to happen. There were lots of anxious looking people wandering through the airport, with a queue of about 50 at the customer service desk. It transpired that a volcano was spewing ash further north and we were grounded. Lucky for us, Alaska Air gave us all our money back (for that flight at least) and we arranged to collect our hire car 3 days early.

This left us with extra, unplanned time in Anchorage, so we decided to go glacier hunting! Hitting the road the next day, we went in search of Matanuska Glacier. The road out of Anchorage heading north-east provides some amazing views. With the snow on the mountains contrasting with the dark green of the pine trees we frequently pulled over to enjoy the vista (and of course, take photos).

The glacier itself is clearly visible from the road, we pulled into the snow covered car park and got out for a closer look. No one else was there, we trudged through the snow (knee deep in places) to the lookout point. There below you is a mass of ice and snow, immensely huge its face is apparently 4 miles across. There is something slightly eerie about glaciers, you know they are moving bodies of water but they appear so still, frozen in time. I assume everyone else was tucked up warm inside somewhere, as no-one arrived to disturb our musings and ours were the only footprints.

Driving a little further, there was a sign suggesting that one could go down to the glacier itself. Feeling adventurous and overly confident we refused to be perturbed by the ‘4×4’s only’ written underneath. We had a 4×4, how hard could it be? Turns out, Alaskans aren’t exaggerating when they say 4×4’s only, what they should in fact say, is ‘4×4’s only, and only in the summer, not when it is snowy, frosty and you are in a hire car driving on the wrong side of the road. Maybe if it had said that we wouldn’t have gone down (probably not).

The first few metres were fine, gravel, but no problem, then it got steeper and bendier. After a very tight bend the road became single gravel track with a cliff on one side and a sheer drop on the other. There was no way back, down was the only option, hoping that no-one was coming the other way on the bends. Finally we got to the bottom where we then had to drive over a wooden bridge made out of planks, with no rails, we lined up the car and drove as straight as possible. After making it across we found a large car park with a few scrap vehicles in it. There was a small shop that we went into where we learnt that you not only have to pay to access the glacier, there is another crazy road between where we were and the face and then a hike as well. We declined the offer. i know many people having got that far would have just got on with it, but our nerves were shot from getting that far and the place had a weird serial killer quality about it. We politely said goodbye and headed back to the road of death. Interestingly, the conversation about who drives when you have a horrific road to travel really highlights who you both consider to be the better driver!

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