Portage Glacier Cruise

We got away from Anchorage about noon today, after stopping at both Walmart and Safeway for groceries, etc. and fuel. Our destination is Homer, AK, on the Kenai peninsula, but we didn’t expect to get all the way today.

Not too far down the very scenic Seward Highway, we stopped for lunch at Beluga Point. We didn’t see any Beluga whales, but did see some Dall sheep high on the cliffs above the point. It’s a very pretty spot with cliff, highway, railroad track, then the ocean.

We followed the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet for about half the day.


Once we turned toward Whittier and Portage Lake, there were glaciers of various sizes all over the place.

Today’s highlight was our side-trip to Portage Lake where we went on a one hour cruise on the S.S. Ptarmigan which took us around the very chilly, iceberg littered lake and right up to the Portage Glacier.

This is a picture looking back toward the parking lot and a small glacier up behind.

One larger iceberg which had drifted close to the boat launch area had been floating around for over one week already.

Only 10% of an iceberg’s mass shows above water. The captain demonstrated this later in the cruise when he dropped a chuck of glacier ice into an aquarium. See how little appears above the water.

There are a multitude of smaller glaciers around Portage Lake. Many are forming pretty waterfalls as they melt.

The glacier looked quite spectacular as we approached. The closer we got, the more the variations in the ice and the bright blue colours appeared. About half the time the glacier calves (drops chunks of ice) when the tour boat is nearby, but we weren’t lucky enough to see it.

We hung around in front of the glacier for a while, taking pictures.

The captain dropped a bucket and brought up some water for people to put their finger in to feel the temperature. Fran did, and said it was very cold. I took his word for it!

After the cruise we went to the visitor centre to look around. It’s an attractive building, right on the edge of the lake with icebergs floating in front of it. Behind the building you can see a tunnel entrance on the highway to Wittier.

After getting back on the road, we continued on toward Homer. We took a supper break at the Turnagain Pass Recreation Area, which was lovely and green. The scenery was very pretty all day today. Too bad the sky was so overcast as our pictures don’t look as good as they would have on a sunny day.

We had heard the Fred Meyers store in Soldotna allowed RV’s to park there overnight, so that’s where we stopped. Of course, our ‘free night camping’ ended up with an $80 shopping trip to the store! Fred Meyers is a Kroger store (like Fry’s) and is even bigger than our Superstores at home. They even sell guns and ammunition! Kayaks, too.