WE GET OUT OF ANCHORAGE

The volcanic ash has died down, cargo flights are in the air again and the part arrived so we are mobile again. We were able to get out of the worst RV park we have stayed at and headed back into the mountains.

On the way here we drove up the Matanuska-Susitna Valley home of the Matanuska Colony which was part of Roosevelt's New Deal, his plan to help Americans recover from the Depression, A survey which was made in June 1934 started it off, three weeks later 240,000 acres were set aside by April 23, the first construction workers and freight were on their way north.
Three days later 203 families started moving north and the land was divided up and allocated by drawing lots. The buildings were standardised design log cabins some of which still lived in today.


Further up the valley we found the source of the river we had been following or to be precise the point at which the river of water became a river of ice 24 miles long.




The Matanuska Glacier is a large valley ice flow, 4 miles wide at the end and moving at about one foot every day as it winds it way down the valley. They say it takes approximately 250 years for the ice to form upglacier and flow just like a slow river to its melting zone.


The rather soggy looking slushy ice still pushes the moraine along and sideways creating a hummocky surface which looks unreal.

We are staying tonight in a RV Park on the Glen Highway called Grandview and the view is just that. There are mountains all around us, Dall sheep play on the hillside behind us and an eagle was working the lift off the crags.