I’ve been wanting to walk on a glacier but I don’t want to have to fly to the glacier. You can’t really drive to glaciers on cruise excursions, but you can from Anchorage.

I looked at a bunch of local companies. Some of them are closed on Sunday. One of them only booked private tours and another was just significantly more expensive for the same tour and required me to leave at 8am.

I ended up booking the Full-Day Matanuska Glacier Hike and Tour with Viator. The meeting spot is the trolley station which is two blocks from where I’m staying and it’s a 9:30 which allowed me to get coffee and breakfast before the tour.

The tour meeting spot was in front of the old city hall next to the log cabin. Just in front of the trolley tour meeting spot.

The van is equipped with binoculars. 

I had the opportunity to sit on either side. If you do this tour I suggest sitting on the right side. Most of the views on the trip to the glacier are on that side. And while you get that view on the left side on the way back, the driver only tells you what everything is once.

The van also has USB plugs.

And we are heading out. The seats next to me filled up. It’s 11 people total.

The driver gave us an overview:

We’re stopping in Palmer to pickup lunch for later. We’ll eat before or after our hike.

2 mile walk on the ice. 2-2.5 hours on the ice.

We’ll stop to see things on the way back.

The plan is to get back 6-6:30 but if it’s earlier he’ll do a city tour to fill our time.

Seward was the largest city in Alaska. Anchorage came in when they wanted to build a railroad to Fairbanks. Location was chosen due to sand and gravel in the area.

The glacier is 4 miles across and 27 miles long.

This is the Talkeetna mountain range.

We were moving too fast but the sign says nobody has hit a moose on this road since July 1st. this is a big moose area.

State fair

Knik Glacier

We stopped to pick up lunch at a gas station in Palmer. I wasn’t too happy with the options. I want to eat something local and this is mostly regular gas station food.  I went with this crab sushi because it says its made with Alaskan seafood.

As I was saying, sit on the right side of the van for the views.

Here we get our first look at Matanuska Glacier.

We stopped for lunch overlooking the glacier.

I had a signal thanks to this AT&T tower.

We found out our time on the ice is 1pm so we drove past the glacier and made some stops to kill time.

This is where we put the binoculars to use. This is known as sheep mountain because you can sometimes see sheep up there. We didn’t see any.

We just drove past a place called Sheep Mountain Lodge which is a bunch of cabins in front of that mountain. It looks like a good spot. You have sheep mountain behind you, then across the street you can see Matanuska glacier. 

We made another stop.

That’s a lot of Christmas trees.

We are back at the glacier. It’s 12:25 and out ice time is 1pm.

You have to have a guide to go on this glacier. The land to get to the glacier is privately owned and natives own the first four miles or so of the glacier. They made that rule do to injuries. I think it’s just a good policy for having people  employed in tourism.

We stopped here to sign our release forms

That’s our van in the middle.

We got back in the van to continue to the glacier parking area.

And we are here.

That group is going out.

We’re going to the staging area.

This is where you pick up your helmet.

Those are all bathrooms.

Helmets are mandatory. Walking sticks optional

Walking sticks are optional. I’m going without a stick. I want to take pictures and videos.

This is our glacier guide. You can’t go out on the glacier without one of these. I am embedding several informative videos of him from my youtube channel. I highly recommend watching them.

Our glacier guide said this area was totally dry yesterday morning. Then it started raining. Remember it was raining when I landed around 1pm. That’s when all of this water came in.

That part was fun

At this point they ask your shoe size and give you a set of spikes. 

The spikes go around your shoes.

Here you can see another tour group.

Here he is drilling a spout for glacier water. I did get and drink a bottle. He says this water is 700 years old.

Here comes the drama. This group we just ran into has a screaming crying young kid (in yellow) and the kid has to be taken back.

The guide for that group lied on the radio saying that we were at the end so our guide could do it. Our guide got on the radio and called baloney sandwiches on that saying he isn’t cutting our tour short.

This pointed area just reminds me of Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. The scene with the abominable snowman.

Look at the black area in the picture above. It looks like a husky. 

If you do this tour during winter there are ice caves you can go inside. This time of year it’s too dangerous.

Here the guide chopped off ice for people to eat.

And we are heading back.

We take off our spikes at the picnic tables and head back across the makeshift bridge to the staging area.

More drama awaits us on the way back. This guy is coming down where you’re supposed to be with a tour guide. He’s on his own with a drone.

Back by the building is I believe that guy’s wife with another drone.

Here we are returning our helmets. They disinfect them and then turn them upside down for the next group.

We are walking back to the van. 

That kid in the yellow from earlier.

We stopped here to eat. I swear he told us to eat earlier. Maybe we were supposed to buy two meals. I don’t know. But we have 30 minutes here. I’m going to take some pictures.

Had I seen this when we first got here I could’ve walked it. I don’t have time now.

And we’re back at the fair. They have a bungee thing going 

And we made it back to the log cabin around 6:30 as planned.

This was one of all-time favorite tours. I spent $285 on the tour. That’s about half the cost of the ship tours where you take a helicopter to a glacier. We also got to spend 2 1/2 hours on the ice where those ship tours I’ve heard get less than an hour.

As I mentioned earlier the glacier guide is mandatory. After being out there I can say it’s with good reason. There’s a lot of danger out there that they keep us away from.

If you get your own transportation to the glacier, you can get a guide for $150 per person. I figured the extra $135 for transportation and having a second guide was worth it. We did have people in our group who needed assistance. Having the bus driver to help really freed up the glacier guide to talk to us. The only person who fell on the ice was our bus driver. 

If you’re going to Anchorage for a couple days and have an interest in glaciers, you have to do this tour.