June 18, Wasilla to Portage Glacier Valley

June 18  We woke up at 7:00 a.m. before our alarms.  We must be anxious to get on the road.  We had breakfast and packed up our site at Matanuska Air Service and were on the way about 9:20.  It had been extremely windy during the night, and it continued as we were leaving.

Before we left we visited with Grant who had just received a shipment of new plane floats.  He said a plane would be coming soon from Healy, a town near Denali NP about 100 miles away.  About that time a plane flew overhead, and he said that was the plane.  The wind was still gusting at a very high rate.  Grant’s phone rang, and it was the plane calling to say they were turning around and going back as the winds were too strong and erratic to chance a landing at the adjacent air field.

Once on the road the northeast winds blowing down the Matanuska Valley seemed to have subsided.  At least once we made the turn to the southwest on the Glenn Highway heading to Anchorage they were on our tail.

We navigated through Anchorage fine and soon were on the Seward Highway.  The Seward takes you along the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet.  Supposedly Captain Cook when exploring the Cook Inlet thought the Turnagain Arm would lead to Prince William Sound.  Since it did not, he had to turn around again...thus its name.

We stopped at several pull offs for photos.  The Turnagain Arm was nearing low tide and so the mud flats were very visible.  You could see the outgoing current rushing out to the Cook Inlet.  Just beyond Girdwood, AK, we made our left turn onto the Portage Glacier Valley Hwy.  A short time later we pulled into the Portage Glacier Valley Cabins and RV Park.  The entire trip took less than 2 hours to drive.

We set up our camp, ate lunch, and then started down the Hwy to the Begish, Boggs Visitor Center run by the National Forest Service.  It is named after 2 Congressmen who died in a plane crash in the area years ago.  We watched a good video program about Alaska, its heritage, and the changing climate.  They also had several nice displays on wildlife and glaciers.

Probably the most striking thing about the Visitors Center is that it is on Portage Lake which is fed by three Glaciers.  There were icebergs floating in the lake and made for a very picturesque scene.  

We then drove to the entrance to the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel.  We will be driving through this tunnel tomorrow to get to Whittier, AK.  The tunnel at 2.5 miles is the longest in North America.  The tunnel runs one way and switches directions on the half hour.  It will cost us $12 to drive our pickup through it round trip.

We then had a cold drink at the little cafe/gift shop near the Visitors Center.  Afterwards we drove to the trailhead for the Byron Glacier.  It was a good trail and a rather easy walk.  We only walked maybe 0.9 of the 1 mile total as the last bit was still snow covered.  We got some photos of the glacier, and I shot a video with my iPhone.

We made a couple of short stops along the highway back to our campground.  One stop was along Portage Valley Creek and the other was a photo op of the Explorer Glacier.

The wind in this valley blew all day.  One nice thing about the wind is that it keeps the mosquitoes away.  We grilled pork chops for supper while admiring the views.  The campground itself is nothing special.  It is a hard packed gravel parking lot with electrical posts in rows for the RVs.  But the views really make this a very nice place.  There are a couple of National Forest campgrounds nearby, but with all the trees, they certainly would not have the mountain views that we have, and we've heard that the trees block the wind which mean they have lots of moquitoes.

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