Portage

There was not a cloud in the sky until afternoon! This was the sunny non-working day we'd been waiting for to go with local volunteer Brian to Portage. Heading south down Turnagain Arm on the Seward Highway we spotted one bald eagle.
Portage glacier itself is no longer visible from the visitor center and has receded drastically in the past 20 years. Instead of taking the boat, we opted to walk to nearby Byron Glacier.

This is a very hard ice field with the glacier farther behind me. Would not want to walk any farther on it as it was very slippery! There were cracks in this ice that Brian said have expanded greatly since last he visited, about a month ago.

Next stop was the Begich Boggs Visitor Center in Portage Valley, a beautifully designed Forest Service run center with great interactive displays and a video on glaciers. When the video ended the curtain parted to reveal an outstanding view of the glaciers. Quite a stunning finish! [Begich and Boggs were both Congressmen whose twin engine airplane disappeared in a remote section of Alaska in 1972.]

Lunch as a local restaurant was a delicious seafood chowder in a bread bowl.
Then over to the entrance of the tunnel that goes to Whittier. The tunnel is almost 2.5 miles long and was originally done in 1943 for the railroad. Today the train shares the tunnel with cars in an orchestrated rotation of train, then east and westbound vehicles. With no reason to go to Whittier we just enjoyed the views and then headed back to Anchorage.