Stats
Distance: 4.7
miles Difficulty:
Strenuous Time: 5 hrs
Summary
We chose to try the Portage
Glacier Trail on 10 Jul 2013. The hike
goes up a nearly continuous inclined for a 750 ft elevation change, then back
down (more gently) the full 750 ft to reach the portage glacier lake. We found the hike on the National Park Service map
(NPS Portage Glacier Trail). This page is useful, but someone dated, see
The Hike section of this post for updated information.
Opinion
This is a fabulous
hike! But we wouldn’t recommend it to
anyone who is not at least reasonably fit.
The highlights of the hike include
a terrific view of the Whittier arm
of Prince William Sound, a gorgeous alpine lake overlooking Portage Glacier,
and a great view of the Portage Glacier.
Trail Advice
This trail has the usual
voracious mosquitoes during summer and has little shade. We strongly recommend a good coating of both
sunscreen and mosquito repellent.
This is a long, hard
hike. Bring water! You might also consider bringing lunch to
enjoy at Portage Glacier Lake.
Suitability
We believe this trail is
only suitable for reasonably fit adults.
Trailhead
To find the trailhead, take
the Whittier / Portage Glacier turnoff from Seward Hwy at the end of the
Turnagain arm. Follow the signs to
Whittier. This route takes you through a
tunnel to Whittier. The tunnel is a
single lane on the railroad track and is one-way in one direction for 15 min,
then switches and becomes one-way in the other direction for 15 min. The train also uses this tunnel and has right
of way. In 2013, it cost $12 to travel
to Whittier through the tunnel. It was
free on the way back.
After you depart the tunnel,
look for the first road on the right (shortly after the restrooms). The road is dirt and small and can be hard to
spot. That road crosses the railroad
tracks and then you will see a sign for the Portage Glacier Trail. The turnoff is NOT marked on the mail road to
or from Whittier. Follow the sign to the
trail and park where the road ends. The
road was in very bad shape when we drove it with car-eating potholes.
The Hike
 |
| Prince William Sound |
We
found this hike on the National Park Service map (NPS Portage Glacier Trail). According to that site, the hike was
supposed to take 20 minutes to get to the alpine lake. This was not correct; I don’t think even a
very fit hiker could walk it that fast.
This was the most strenuous hike we've done so far; it took us at least
45 min to get to the top. The first part
of the trail was a constant climb--at times very steep--for a 750 ft rise in
elevation. Unlike most trails of this
nature, there are essentially no level areas all the way to the top of the
saddle; the closest hike Chris can remember to this trail is the Manitou
Incline near Colorado Springs. If you
turn around when you take a rest break, you get beautiful views of Prince
William Sound.
 |
| Upper Trail |
After
you reach the top of the saddle the trail starts right back down. There is a small pond just over the
saddle. The trail works down to and past
that pond, then heads, less steeply, down about 100 ft of elevation to an
alpine lake. One of the great things
about hiking in Alaska is for every couple hundred feet elevation you push back
the season by a couple of weeks. For this hike, the top of the pass was
just showing the earliest of the spring flowers in bloom.
 |
| Streams and Water |
The
lake is lovely. As you walk down the
trail you see the lake ahead, a glacier to the left, the Portage Glacier
straight ahead beyond the lake, and dozens of small creeks rolling down the
hill to the right to merge into two very nice waterfalls. The trail down to the lake was the bed of a
very shallow creek for much of the way.
The water was shallow enough that wet feet were not an issue in hiking
boots or (probably) tennis shoes.
 |
| Portage Glacier View |
The
alpine region is covered with wildflowers, grasses, willows, and alder. It is very beautiful. We followed the trail around to far end of
the lake. The trail at this point was
nearly level and easy walking, but occasionally boggy or out-right muddy. The trail splits at near the far end of the
lake. One part of the trail had trail
markers and heads off to the left. The
other keeps going around the lake. We
continued around the lake first. That
trail ends at the stream carrying the water from the lake to the glacier
lake. What an incredible view it
was! We were very glad we’d taken that
detour.
After
enjoying the view, we headed back and took the other trail. According to the National Park Service web site,
the trail was supposed to end at the alpine lake. From there, if you wanted to get to the
Portage Glacier Lake you needed to bushwhack your way down. That is now out-of-date. Someone had recently cut a nice trail down the
other 650 ft of elevation to the Portage Glacier Lake. This part of the trail is much easier that
the initial hike to the top of the saddle.
There are many level parts to the trail and most of the hike is mild to
medium incline. There are only a few
steep parts.
 |
| Glacier Lake |
The
trail ends at the stream fed by the alpine lake near where it enters the
Portage Glacier Lake. The view of the
glacier is terrific and the beach is relatively easy to navigate. Unlike the Grewingk
Glacier Lake, there were no icebergs visible in the lake while we were
there.
The
next time we do this hike, we're also going to investigate waders. It looks like you can hike all the way around
the lake to the glacier face. However, a
river breaks the beach just before the glacier and we were not equipped for
wading in potentially deep, fast moving water.
While
we enjoyed the beach and recuperated for the trip back home, we were treated to
the passage of the Ptarmigan (Ptarmigan Cruise Website). This boat ride is on our must do list.
It cruised to within 50 feet of the glacier and we want to see the view
from there at take photos.
This
was a truly great, but also very tough hike.
We will do it again and the next time we will bring more water and do
lunch at the glacier.
| View Larger Map |
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment