I sure do miss the snow right about now, but this little scroll down memory lane got me a little chilly and feeling thankful for the current southeast temperatures.

Winters in Alaska can be mentally and physically challenging. As a creative, it’s even more challenging to be constantly producing work through a frigid winter where your camera battery doesn’t last more than 30 minutes outside.

A year ago, my friend Abby and I decided to beat this creative rut by venturing down to Matanuska Glacier for a day trip.

Matanuska Glacier is a valley glacier in the US state of Alaska. At 27 miles long by 4 miles wide, it is the largest glacier accessible by car in the United States. Its terminus feeds the Matanuska River. It lies near the Glenn Highway about 100 miles north-east of Anchorage.

We met up with Wayfare Collective in Anchorage and started the drive to this beautiful creation. While visiting Matanuska Glacier in the winter is such a dream, it can be a little difficult for several reasons. For starters, the glacier is a neighbor to private property where the couple has taken advantage of people having to cross their property to get to the glacier. The full story behind it is a mess, but long story short, if you’re not an Alaskan resident, they’re charging $100/person to view the glacier. Not to mention their “requirement” to have a one of their guides walk you around the glacier. I wish I could explain it more, but it just doesn’t make sense to me. If you care to venture to this place, I’d look into other resources for accessing the glacier, SAFELY and STILL LEGALLY.

This biggest challenge for us this particular day were the below zero temperatures. The exact temperature was hard to measure but I believe it was somewhere around -15°F (that’s !5 degrees below zero and 47 degrees below zero). My Steger Mukluks pulled through and kept my toes nice and cozy all day, but my fingers were done less than 10 minutes of us walking out to the glacier (not even to the main glacier yet). And we were out there for a couple hours….

Keep scrolling to see some an amazing ice cave!