From Gail’s house we drove back north into the MatSu valley to take a stroll on a glacier. It seemed like something we should do while we were in Alaska – there aren’t too many places where that’s a thing.

One thing we have been missing on this trip is wildlife sightings, and specifically seeing moose. We see warning sign after warning sign along the highway, and marshland after marsh, and still only one live moose. Finally, the first night in our campground we saw this young buck. He was strolling through the empty campsite next to us, and just gorgeous. Finally, check off the moose sighting.

We drove out to the Matanuska Glacier and took a 4 hour tour with a guided group. It was a nice walk and we learned a lot about the glacier and had a fun day hiking around with our ice spikes on. This was the only ice cave accessible to the tours that day, but there were lots of pretty photo ops as we walked around.

From the MatSu valley we drove back towards Anchorage and checked into a site at a local spot at Eklutna State Park. It was a really nice campground on a big lake, but relatively empty during midweek.

What it did have was a 9 mile long trail along the lake. It was mostly a shoreline trail, much single track, and occasionally would converge with the ATV trail when there was no path along the shore. At the other end of the lake was a runway, campground, and waterfall. We didn’t quite make it all the way up to the waterfall, but that’s for another day. It was a fantastic ride and we had a great day. I got a little bit of a sore index finger ringing the bear bell on the bike, but there were enough people we didn’t really think the bears were close by.

After our long ride we treated ourselves to ice cream by the fire and got ready for our trip south onto the Kenai Peninsula.

Pix from this leg are here