Today, I was thinking about a trip down south to Seward, on the Kenai Peninsula, perhaps to see the Exit Glacier, and maybe see the Alaska SeaLife Center down there. Unfortunately it was quite wet and stormy down that way so we opted to drive north.

Our goal was the Independence mine in Hatcher Pass. I visited there back in 1999 and it was a fun place, full of history and old buildings.

So we drove past Palmer, then along the Little Susitna River. Of course we had to stop to take photos ;-)

Rivers with lots of big round boulders are a lot of fun. It took a few minutes to get my old skills of running on top of the rocks back, but even laden with cameras and lenses, I was able to get out on the river fairly well without getting wet or breaking anything. We ended up spending about an hour in this little turnout taking photos of the river at our feet.

We headed up the winding road, which soon became a winding gravel road, and we got to the mine only to find that it was still closed for the winter. It looked pretty snowed-in, so despite the mild winter, I guess they had an abundance of snow up here. Oh well, back down we went.

Just a few hundred feet north along the Glenn Highway, is a really cool overlook. The Matanuska river valley below, a braided glacial stream backed by mountains - quite a lot of photo opts here. There were also some pink wild roses. They were there, I had a camera so here they are for you to enjoy..

Continuing along the highway, we stopped from time to time, sometimes every mile or so actually, to take photos of spectacular scenery. I was just on this highway back in January, but it looks so different now in late spring. Much greener and not so icy ;-)

It was getting well into the afternoon so we had a late lunch, or mid-dinner, hard to say what it was since it stays light here all night long in June. Jeanette found a brochure for the Matanuska Glacier, which we passed a few miles back. According to the brochure, this is the largest glacier accessible by car. Pretty neat!

Once we got there I kind of went nuts. I also looked kind of silly what with an umbrella and all. It was raining and I did not want to get my camera soaked. However, the rain was just light sprinkles and occassionally subsided completely so I just wandered off toward the glacier. I was not paying much attention and so after an hour or so on the glacier, I realized that Jeanette was nowhere to be seen. I had totally lost her but she was able to find her way back to the car and await my return. Meanwhile, I was able to get a LOT of photos. The ice presented a few problems with exposures, but I just got what looked good on the back of the camera and shot on manual. That really helped.

Despite the ice and the rain, it was warm. It was probably in the 60's which is warm when you are hiking. It also made the ice really slick. I kept trying to get up to the terminus of the glacier, well the part with all the huge pieces of blue ice which looked like giant crystals, but I kept finding places where going up would have been OK, but coming back down without a pickaxe or proper shoes would have been a bit too problematic... So, I just used my 100-400mm lens to zoom in for a few closeups. However, I mostly used my 16-35mm lens to take it all in for the glacier was quite spectacular, even if I could not get to the really cool part ;-)

On the way out, there was a moose grazing alongside the road which made a nice final photo for the day's ventures.