Companies look for solution to 'trespass' issues at increasingly popular Matanuska Glacier

The growth of business at Matanuska Glacier is spurring a new policy requiring first-time visitors to buy a $100-per-person guided tour.

It's also bringing to a head long-term negotiations between the private company with authority over public glacier access and Cook Inlet Region Inc.

Matanuska Glacier Park LLC offers access to the glacier area via a road on private property. But the Anchorage-based Alaska Native corporation owns a huge tract of land at the foot of the glacier that visitors must cross.

CIRI is working with the business "to come up with some arrangement to allow that access to continue, to allow that trespass to continue," said Jason Moore, a spokesman for CIRI.

Members of the Kimball family decades ago opened the glacier park with property acquired through late 1960s homestead claims that included the route of steep, switch-backed road down to the valley floor and out to the toe of the glacier.

But Matanuska Glacier Park doesn't own anything but a small piece of the glacier itself, according to state and local officials.

CIRI, on the other hand, owns the ground between the parking area and the glacier plus a square mile of the ice, according to Matanuska-Susitna Borough property records. The Anchorage-based Native corporation also owns a small piece of land crossed by the access road, according to Moore.

CIRI has never received any payment in return for glacier access despite years of discussions and is now "actively working" on a written agreement with park owners, Moore said.

"I think what they're looking for is some sort of a payment," he said. "From CIRI's perspective, this has been the shareholders' property and we have to act in their best interest and protect those rights. We're trying to get this resolved."

Bill Stevenson, longtime glacier park caretaker, said the company has always had a good working relationship with CIRI. He expects to reach an agreement by summer.