Matanuska Glacier climb - Alaska part 6

The next day had another exciting adventure in store. We had booked our Matanuska Glacier hike through Mica Guides website in advance. Matanuska glacier is the biggest land accessible glacier in Alaska. So we wanted to see it from as near as possible and what could be nearer than a hike on it! The drive to it was another gorgeous two hour drive from Anchorage. It was a very different terrain as compared to the Denali drive. We reached the Mica guide site at about 10am. We were scheduled for a hike at 11am. I was not keen on doing the glacier climb but was satisfied with just the hike, since climb looked scary. As I insisted my husband to do the glacier climb, since he craves for adventure, I saw two kids age 9 and 12, ready to do the climb with their parents. That gave me the necessary nudge and we switched from a hike to climb. To this day I am glad I did! It was an experience of lifetime. It was fun, it was strenuous, it stretched and tested your limits. But the feeling of climbing to the summit was all worth it.

We were given all the gear, the leg covers so as not to scratch ourselves with our own spikes. The ice climbing spiky boots called crampons, the helmet, the axe. With all gear worn and ready to go, the team drove us to the nearest glacier entry. It was accessible from a private road and the house that owned the access collected a fee. Lucky them!. We got off the jeep and started our way across the glacier, following our peppy guides. We stepped in their steps and followed the trail to the nearest smallest ice peak. Our learning lessons began and so did my doubts about signing for the climb. The first lesson was how to use crampons to  climb vertically. How to swing the foot and fix the crampon in ice and try to stand on it as if it was a support step. Theory easy, practical...well! to say the least...after I climbed halfway on the ice, i began to reconsider whether I should be doing this for the whole day. Half way through the climb, my legs screamed and once in a while I just had to hang by the rope and take time off. I felt bad for the trainers who were holding us up by pulling at the other end of the rope and shouting constantly "you can do it!" I gave up halfway through it. The easiest climb was for 2 kids who were also taking lessons with us, they climbed like pros. To say the least I wished to be a kid again if only for a day. While practicing climbing using the ice axe and without ice axe, we moved to our first real glacier climb. After that the climbs started getting a lot easier than the first one and till the end of the day, when we came to the toughest one, I was glad with everyone else that we had such a great fruitful and fun time! On the last glacier climb, we even saw and heard a big part of glacier go down in a moment making a big bang sound. It looked like standing in movie ice age or experiencing the movie vertical limit as the guides called it. We saw a lot of ice caves, streams and drank water by extracting it through ice using a tool.
So if you plan to hike a glacier, I would really recommend climbing one rather than hiking! Its a once in a lifetime experience. Also, don't forget your goggles and sun screen. Though I had the goggles, i had no sun screen. I had a bad tan and a sun burn next day. Can you imagine getting that kind of burn with reflection of sun on ice? crazy!
We came back by dusk and searched for some good heavy dinner. we needed comfort food and craved Indian. Lucky to find one Indian restaurant in Anchorage, we headed straight to eat and with stomach full, crashed in hotel after a memorable ice climbing day.