Our Portage Glacier Adventure

Yesterday Adria, Thomas and I took a trip to Portage Glacier with some friends. We first heard about Portage Glacier when we came up to Anchorage for our apartment hunting trip. The TV in our room would always turn on dialed to "The Alaska Channel". This channel had many little segments on things to do in the Anchorage area including the store that sells hand woven items from musk ox wool (including a little bit on the domestication of musk ox) and a bit with the mayor of Anchorage saying what a nice place Anchorage is to live in. There also was a segment on Portage Glacier and how it was just a short walk from the road. However it seems that the glacier has receded since the spot for the Alaska Channel was shot because it wasn't as short of a walk as we expected it to be. Here are some pictures from our adventure:


Thomas getting ready to go out


The road to Portage Lake

Portage Glacier sits on the far end of Portage Lake. There are two ways to get to the glacier. During the summer you can take a boat ride to it, or in the winter when the lake freezes you can walk to it. When we arrived at the lake we put on our snowshoes and put Thomas in the chariot with his friend Kai and off we went.


Thomas in the chariot with Kai


The frozen Portage Lake


Us traveling on the frozen lake to the glacier with Thomas and Kai in tow in the chariot

Once we got to the glacier we were tired and a little cold. But we were excited to have finally arrived after a 1.5 hour trek. It was beautiful with the sun behind the mountains over the blue ice. We took a couple of pictures before heading back across the lake to our cars to go home and eat. The beauty of the glacier sustained us on the return trip through 20 to 30 mile per hour winds pushing us back towards the glacier. (It seemed like we weren't moving forward for most of the trip back!)