I had a fantastic day today. Had the usual hotel breakfast and then traipsed off to the Salmon Berry Tours for my Glacier Walk. There was a small amount of snowfall during the walk.

They gave me some boots and waterproof pants, then we headed off (there were 12 of us) in the dark to drive to the area where the Matanuska Glacier is. We stopped off in a little town called Palmer for a coffee break. I had a normal 12 ounce (around 350ml) Mocha and a tasty Russian Tea Cake. Then we headed up into the mountains. We watched the sun come up over the mountains, which was quite spectacular. We arrived at the site just around 12 noon. So we had lunch, I had a very tasty salmon salad and orange and spice tea. Then we headed down to the little hut to get all our gear. We had hand  and toe warmers (little sachets that you shake and then they heat up to about 57 degrees (it takes 20 minutes) and they then last 8 hours. So the toe ones we had to stick in our shoes and the hand ones we put in our pockets. So if our hands go cold, we’d put our hands in pockets and they’d warm up.

We were then given helmets and shoes “braces” with spikes on them, to keep traction in the snow and on the ice. Then we headed off on our walk. It took around an hour and a half to get to the final end point, and on the way we walked through crevices, on ice, through bits of snow, and saw majestic scenes of things frozen into ice. It was spectacular. It’s one of the best experiences that I have had. I took some really great (in my humble opinion) photos of the sun coming up (from the bus) and going back down, with shots of all sorts of geological formations and ice striations. Some of the tourists also had an ice race which was a lot of fun. Then it was time to return. It took about a half hour to get back, and it was mostly uphill, but I survived. The actual Glacier walk itself from start to finish took around 2 hours. But it was well worth it. I would love to do it again, especially since I accidentally deleted around 350 photos (leaving only 3-4 remaining) tonight whilst transferring them from the SHDC card to the computer. This is by no means one of my best shots. But I have many great memories!

Once we got back, I headed back to the hotel to change and then went off to the Atwood Concert Hall to see their version of The Nutcracker.

On the way, I stopped in to take a photo of the choir in the Anchorage Town Centre. The City’s Christmas Tree just happened to be turned on tonight, so I was lucky to see them.

The Ballet was performed by the Eugene Ballet Company and accompanied by the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra. I really enjoyed it. I have seen that ballet 3 times now, once in London, once in Melbourne, and now in Anchorage. Each one had the same framework of the story (E.T.A. Hoffman’s tale, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” which he wrote in 1861), but they were all different visually. Again it was really enjoyable.

Then off home and to pack up ready to move to the next town!