The Glacier View Car Launch

On the Fourth of July, this quiet bluff above the Matanuska River becomes the site of one of the wildest celebrations in Alaska. Since around two thousand five, the tiny community of Glacier View has marked Independence Day by pushing old cars off a cliff roughly three hundred feet high and watching them tumble onto the riverbank below. It started by accident.

When the river swallowed the usual parade route, an organizer rolled his wife's old car, recently wrecked by a moose, off the edge instead. The crowd loved it, and a tradition was born. Over the years they have launched many kinds of vehicles, against the backdrop of the Matanuska Glacier.

The event draws big crowds. Its future is uncertain, though, because the ever shifting Matanuska River keeps eating away at the very bluff the cars fly from.