Portage Valley

We spent the last week at the Williwaw Campground in Portage Valley.

Mama moose & baby running past our campsite

It's about an hour's drive from Anchorage. No hook-ups, so that means dry camping. No electric, no water, no dumps, and most important, no cell service. The scenery here is absolutely amazing. We're surrounded by mountains with glaciers and snow. That makes it cooler here, about 10 degrees cooler than Anchorage. Here's some highlights of our last week....

June 18   We met Raschad at the Portage Train station for a ride to Grandview. This was our first train ride and really enjoyed ourselves. The whole trip was about 4 hours long.

First class seats

Eagle's nest

Trail Glacier

June 19    We went for a drive out to Hatcher Pass and Independence Mine. Both were closed., too early in the season. Was a nice drive anyway.

June 20   We drove out to Seward today. It took us about 1 1/2 hours from Portage. When we got to Seward we called Raschad. He was working on the train to Seward today, and when we called him, he was at a hotel, taking a 5 hour break. So we picked him up and he showed us around.

Sea otter cruising in Seward

 June 21     Met Raschad at the train station to pick up some Avon skin so soft. Hopefully, it'll help with the monster mosquitoes.

Raschad backing it up

Ready to take off

June 22     We took a long drive out to Soldotna today. Just checking out places and things to do when our family comes for a visit next week. We're really looking forward to seeing everyone.

June 23     I wanted to go hiking today from our campground. There is a nice hiking trail called Blue Ice Trail, it goes to the visitors center on Portage Lake, about 1 1/2 miles one way. There's lakes and glaciers and suppose to be a very nice, scenic hike but it rained all night and this morning was still very rainy and wet.  So we waited until about 1 pm and it still didn't clear up so we just drove to the visitors center instead. Joe didn't mind because he keeps thinking a bear is going to attack us on one of these hikes that I drag him on. This was one of the nicest visitor's center that we have gone to. There's a short film that they show, which is excellent and the exhibits are really interesting.

Portage Glacier

Ice on the lake

This is the only moose I'm getting close to

In the afternoon we drove out to see the bore tide come in. This was something to see. It comes in slowly and it looks like a small wave, like white wash. But it picks up in certain places. There were 2 stand up paddlers and a few surfers out there but no one caught the wave for very long. These guys are crazy, the water is freezing cold. Very different from surfing in Hawaii. There's only 1 wave so you better catch it. When the wave passes, there's a lot of surges of water, especially close to the shoreline.