Glacier View

 

June 29, Thursday – Drove 3 hours from Valdez to Glacier View Alaska. Dry camping for the

next 3 nights, hope we have enough water and battery. Drive was nice and roads were good.

More mountains and glaciers, I believe these glaciers are fed from the same ice field as the one

we saw in Valdez. The Ice sheet must be huge!

As we neared the campground on our drive to Glacier View, we finally saw an enormous moose

cross the road right in front of us!!! You need to be fast with the camera to get a picture. They

are large and graceful and quickly disappear into the woods. Campground is very rustic and

mostly empty; this is the most alone we have been since we left the house. We had a couple of

cocktails and Craig made a fire and had a cigar in celebration of the solitude!

June 30 Friday – Today we slept in and then drove back (east) up the Glen highway to get some

pictures of glaciers we saw driving in. We also need to find a dump station for when we leave.

We had a wonderful dinner at Sheep Mountain Lodge and setup a glacier helicopter tour for

tomorrow. Sooooo excited!!!

July 1, Saturday – It’s a beautiful sunny day! Breakfast at the campsite sitting outside in our pj’s

soaking up the sun (which is rare up here!) while looking across at a clear view of the

mountains! Craig was glassing for moose on the mountain ridge, and sure enough he spotted

one and watched it munching away! He calculated it was about 3 miles away and watched off

and on all day. At 2:00 pm we took off for our helicopter ride to the Matanuska Glacier! Our

pilot Thomas was also owner of the Sheep Mountain Lodge. Great guy! We were very

comfortable with him as our pilot. We flew up from the glacier toe about 14 miles and then

landed right next to a turquoise blue pool of water! We walked around a bit and filled up our

water bottle with glacier water which tasted pure and clean! I was so moved by the beauty of

the glacier and mountains that I shed a tear or two on the helicopter ride back. It was a

moment in time we will never forget!