Matanuska Glacier scramble

I am employed by Pacific Science Center in Seattle, but i get to work all over the country.  I travel with an exhibit owned by PSC, rented to other science museums.  The exhibit is called Mostly Music, it's about the science of music.  In January i got to drive a forklift in the snow down 6th Ave in Anchorage carrying a working 12 foot high guitar!   I'm in charge of unloading the 18 wheeler and supervising the local crew doing set up.  Then i repair what's broken and go home for the 3 month run of the exhibit.  I come back to tear it down.  I've been to Tennessee, Berkeley California and Anchorage Alaska.  Later this month (May 1998) i'm going to Hoboken New Jersey!

I just got back from Anchorage for the second time.  Since we had a very tight schedule, (the exhibit had to go by ship instead of truck) PSC sent Steve with me for some extra hands.  We worked through the weekend, and despite all predictions, actually finished in 4 days. We had both planned on spending an extra day or two in Alaska, to have some fun.  On Tuesday Calvin, one of our day workers was going to take us flying, but he stood us up -- big surprise!  I kind of felt all along that he wasn't going to come through with it but Steve was very disappointed.

Instead we borrowed Mia's car and drove out the Glen Highway to Palmer and beyond to the Matanuska Glacier.  The mountains, Chugach to the left and Talkeetna to the right, were AWESOME.  It was really neat driving along the area of  my NOLS trip, although i must admit i didn't recognize anything. (In 1992 i spent 32 days off trail on the OTHER side of the Talkeetnas and only a few hours on this highway!)

Glacier access, and the glacier itself, is privately owned, if you can believe that.  We paid our $6.50 (i  would sure rather that went to a government instead of an individual!) and drove through the riverbed towards the glacier.  We encountered a huge puddle, which after tossing lots of stones and
sticks and wondering, Steve decided was safe to drive through.  I had serious questions but he was in 4wd and just sped through... we were fine, and he had too much fun! 

We got to the glacier area and walked up towards it...  the ice on the pond below it was melting in the heat of the sun and on top of the slush was this paper-thin layer of ice, which  you could pick up, and even blow a hole in!  It was cool.  In the mud where the little streams of silt-saturated-glacier-water were trickling, there were many different shades of mud, all in beautiful patterns!  And the silt in the water in the river was the right crystalline shape to cause swirly patterns like the swirly ball at PSC....
wild!  I loved it!  Steve was enthralled examining, and collecting, the rocks. 

Then we walked up on to the black ice, and then the glacier itself.  Of course i slipped and fell immediately.  The glacier, like all the others i've been on, was stunning.  I love the little streams and ponds that are formed on the ice!  We walked farther and farther up the glacer, heading for a
giant heaving fold of blue ice. The surface was snowy and pretty hard, but there were places where we would post-hole 3 or 4 feet.

We reached the gorgeous blue ice, walked around it, and then beyond, marveling at the sensational pond of water with ice and snow on it -- this was frozen water, sitting on frozen water, floating on liquid water, sitting on frozen water!  Wow! 

I am used to be very prepared for such expeditions, in fact i am usually fanatical about being
over-prepared, but today i had on only had walking shoes (with good tread), corduroys and no
ice axe or anything. I did have a water bottle, but i still felt stupid.  Or rather, i felt like it was getting in over my head.  I loved the glacier, but i didn't like that feeling. We actually got ourselves pretty high up on a ridge, and Steve was getting summit fever, but clearly what we could see was not a
summit. 

We knew it was getting late, but instead of turning around and going back the way we came, we continued up the ridge, hoping to get to the end and cross over the the next one north and come down.  Of course when we got there we found that wasn't possible, but Steve decided to go down this tight, deep little chute -- i was scared and frustrated about being unprepared.  This was not a chute
like a rock slide or anything, it was a solid sheet of curved ice, that descended about 170 feet.  There was snow in much of the chute and we were able to self arrest with our feet, and in-fact were able to plunge step much of the way. 

About halfway down Steve stopped to take a photo of a second chute next to us; this one was shapped like a 'U'.  It went down and then back up again and the point we were standing next to was at the bottom of the U..  As my mind had completely left at this point i... got .... in ... the ... chute, for the
photo.  I bet it's an awsome photo (i haven't seen it yet.) but when it came time to get out, i was in big trouble. 

I had to cross a small wall of pure ice, about 3 feet high and 4 feet wide.  There was nothing to hold on to and on the other side was a 90 foot drop.  I was as scared as i've ever been and cussing myself for being unprepared and letting myself get into this.  I tried to climb the snow in the upslope leg of the 'U' so i could get to a more accessible place, but the snow just collapsed, so finally i just had to jump over and twist around in mid air and do a self arrest in the chute when i hit.  I did it, but it really scared me.