Friday, June 24 Portage Valley

We went back to the Downtown Deli and Cafe for another huge breakfast.  Jim had very nicely prepared Huevos Rancheros with 3 “silver dollar” pancakes that were about 7 inches wide and home fries.  Ardith had buttermilk biscuits and gravy with eggs and home fries.  She didn’t touch the home fries and didn’t quite finish one biscuit but it was incredible.

We decided to take a day trip to the Portage Glacier which is a 50 mile drive from Anchorage. The weather was beautiful – sunny, blue sky, and perfect for this trip.  The drive was filled with great scenery.

We stopped first at the visitors center which overlooks the lake formed by the glacier. The center has an excellent exhibit with video and tapes that tells the story of this area.  There was a film showing the amazing power of glaciers and the history of the nearby ones.  At the close of the film, the screen moved and there was a wonderful view of Portage Lake and Byron Glacier.

As per his wishes, Jim finally got close to a moose.

Ardith visited her favorite bear.

In the lake outside the visitor’s center Ardith saw a piece of glacier ice that she couldn’t decide if it looked like a whale or an older style airplane.

There was a boat trip available and we took it to get very close to the Portage Glacier.

The surrounding scenery was also quite wonderful.

We had a delightful visit with a Forest Service ranger on the boat who was probably our age.  She and her husband live in Oregon but come up to Alaska every summer to work for the forest service as guides.  She did the commentary on the boat ride. We met her again when we went back to the visitors center to get a map of the hiking trails around the glacier area.  

There have been almost no places that accept recycling in Alaska.  This was one exception.  All the trash cans in out door places are bear proof.

 There was a lodge near the visitors’ center where we stopped for lunch, just before 3 busloads arrived.  We had soup and sandwiches that were slow in coming, but people who came from buses had much longer waits.  The room wasn’t big enough to hold everyone, let alone get them served with a very small staff.

After lunch we hiked to the Byron Glacier and we were able to actually walk on the lower part of the glacier. 

Jim ventured higher up on the glacier by the gentle slope so he could get pictures from a different perspective.  Ardith waited patiently.

Jim liked seeing the start of new life on formerly barren rocks, starting with lichens, then adding small plants as the lichens broke the rock down and the wind swept soil into crevasses.

There were 2 guys who climbed the steep slope to top of the glacier, despite warnings not to do it.  There group members were very annoyed with them. They finally had to slide down on their bottoms because it was too difficult to try and walk down.

 Returning along the trail, we saw hoe the wind shaped the growth of trees.

We loved the water rushing along the nearby stream.

There was an unusual plant that grew new stems out of bulbous growths.

Returning to our motel, we were not hungry enough to have a big dinner.  Instead we walked to one of about 6 local street stands and Ardith had a bratwurst, and Jim had an Italian sausage that was a special blend exclusively for our vendor.  On our walk back to the motel we stopped and had ice cream.  Nothing like health food.

We spent the evening doing laundry at our motel.