Portage Valley & Whittier Tunnel Drive Guide

Locat­ed at Mile 1.0 of the Portage High­way, this site has a short board­walk trail along sev­er­al ponds. It is a good site for observ­ing water­fowl that nest and rear their young in the ponds and riv­er channels.

If you have the abil­i­ty to trans­port bicy­cles, this trail makes for a great after­noon trip. The dirt path winds through the Portage Val­ley, pass­ing glacial lakes and end­ing at Portage Lake (this part of the trip is 5 miles each way). Make sure to bring your cam­era: you’ll see hang­ing glac­i­ers and, very like­ly, some wildlife.

Stop at the turnout to pho­to­graph this beau­ti­ful hang­ing glac­i­er high on the mountainside. 

Bik­ing, fish view­ing, a nat­ur­al his­to­ry cen­ter and a flat hike to a glac­i­er are with­in easy reach of this qui­et, inti­mate camp­ground in Portage Val­ley at the head of Tur­na­gain Arm in the Chugach Nation­al For­est. The 12 sites in the grav­eled, wood­ed Black Bear are yards from the Trail of Blue Ice — a non-motor­ized mul­ti-use trail that tra­vers­es the val­ley floor.

With 60 sites on paved loops, Willi­waw is suit­able for large motorhomes and offers great access to the Trail of Blue Ice — a non-motor­ized mul­ti-use trail that tra­vers­es the val­ley floor. Also near­by bik­ing, salmon view­ing, hikes, and glac­i­er viewing.

Crys­tal-clear Willi­waw Creek and its bank-side trail sys­tem in Portage Val­ley at the head of Tur­na­gain Arm offers excep­tion­al­ly good con­di­tions for watch­ing spawn­ing in action. Coho, sock­eye and chum salmon con­verge on the creek as it winds through the brushy flats begin­ning in mid-August, with some late-arriv­ing fish still present after first frost in the fall.

There is a good guide for this trail avail­able at the Begich, Bog­gs Vis­i­tor Cen­ter at Portage Glac­i­er. Num­bered trail posts cor­re­spond to things in the guide. This is a great place to view spawn­ing salmon in the fall. It is a well-main­tained path with a thir­ty-foot bridge. This hike is wheel­chair acces­si­ble and there are lots of berries and var­i­ous wildlife species.

Orig­i­nal­ly built in 1956 as a bar at the end of a 5 mile grav­el road which served Glac­i­er Ice Mar­gar­i­tas. In 1964 a restau­rant and lodg­ing was added, but the lodg­ing por­tion was elim­i­nat­ed in 1980. The only place to eat in the val­ley, this fam­i­ly-run day lodge has a gift shop and serves cafe­te­ria-style food.

Why go The For­est Service’s Begich, Bog­gs Vis­i­tor Cen­ter is locat­ed in Portage Val­ley, one of Alaska’s most vis­it­ed recre­ation areas. The val­ley is a show­case of glacial activ­i­ty with a num­ber of ​“hang­ing” glac­i­ers grac­ing the encir­cling moun­tains. The vis­i­tor cen­ter is locat­ed on the north­west­ern shore of Portage Lake, and was built on the ter­mi­nal moraine left behind by Portage Glac­i­er almost a cen­tu­ry ago. The Trail of Blue Ice, Byron…  ...more

Glac­i­ers are formed when more snow accu­mu­lates than melts through the sea­sons. The weight of the snow cre­ates pres­sure that turns snowflakes into dense, rivers of ice that shape the land.

This short day hike — with an eas­i­ly acces­si­ble trail­head a few hun­dred meters from the Begich Bog­gs Vis­i­tor Cen­ter — offers you big views of the Byron Glacier.

Tech­ni­cal­ly, Portage is no longer a road­side glac­i­er, as it recedes an aver­age of one foot a day and is now no longer vis­i­ble from the road, but its big blue ice­bergs are often found along the shore of the lake, right in front of the park­ing area. On Byron, ice worms are com­mon, if you get down and look. There are also beau­ti­ful ice caves and rivulets to see, but be care­ful not to walk too far onto the ice of this tempt­ing glac­i­er. You can see…  ...more

Just an hour’s dri­ve from Anchor­age, the MV Ptarmi­gan let you get with­in 300 feet of the tow­er­ing ice wall called Portage Glac­i­er. You can also book a nar­rat­ed motor­coach tour to take you to Portage Glacier. 

Deep enough to sub­merge an 80-sto­ry build­ing, the lake was carved out over thou­sands of years of glacial advances. While Salmon make their way into the lake, you may not see them due to the immense deposits of glacial silt. The silt also pro­tects them from preda­tors such as birds and larg­er fish. How­ev­er, they even­tu­al­ly make their way to clear­er waters. Look for dense blue ice­bergs from Portage Glac­i­er blown to shore.

It’s free to go this far by car, and you’ll get a pic­ture-per­fect shot of Portage Glacier.

Dri­ving from Anchor­age to Whit­ti­er to play in Prince William Sound? You’ll go through Anton Ander­son Memo­r­i­al Tun­nel — the longest (2.5 miles) high­way tun­nel in North Amer­i­ca, and the first designed for ‑40 Fahren­heit tem­per­a­tures and 150 mph winds! The one-lane tun­nel must be shared by cars and trains trav­el­ing in both direc­tions, and it usu­al­ly needs to be aired out in between trips (with jet tur­bine ven­ti­la­tion, anoth­er first!). This unique…  ...more

Whit­ti­er was built as a deep­wa­ter port and rail­road ter­mi­nus to trans­port fuel and sup­plies dur­ing World War II. Come inside the Anchor Inn where a small but fas­ci­nat­ing muse­um gives a glimpse of Whit­tier’s inter­est­ing history.

Built dur­ing WWII as a top-secret mil­i­tary project, today Whit­ti­er is a great jump­ing-off place to explore Prince William Sound. To con­nect Whit­ti­er with the rest of the Alas­ka Rail­road, dur­ing the war the mil­i­tary con­struct­ed a mas­sive tun­nel. Today the expand­ed tun­nel is the longest com­bined rail and high­way tun­nel in North America.