Portage Valley - (7.8.15 - 7.11.15)

 

 

 Notes about Our Blog:

Now that we are a couple of months into this trip, and our attempts to blog, let us share a couple of thoughts. The primary purpose of the blog has been to share our trip, 'through our eyes', and try to provide a sense of space and the experience. We have friends, acquaintances and family who want to do the trip, are on the trip now, or have done the trip and are following our experience. Many of the pictures we take, are taken out of a bug infested windshield while driving, or from moving planes, trains and boats. We shoot in the wrong lighting conditions and in the most imperfect conditions, breaking every best practice rule about how to take fine photographs. We don't always share our most technically perfect photo because it may not relevant to the text.

We are still finding our way on font, the balance of text to photos and other content decisions. We are also faced with technical challenges in posting the blog beyond what we had expected. When we have decent data service (infrequently), we set up our own hot spot. When we do have good data service, it is fleeting as we pass through an area, or we do not have a blog ready. Grrrrrrr.

Most commercial campgrounds offer wifi, but it is small banded, slow and impossible to use for uploading pictures to a blog. No federal, state or municipal camps have wifi, and often no proximity to good data service. Those are the campgrounds we tend to prefer for camping. We have sought out public libraries, grocery stores and laundromats for better wifi, even at one point begging the Verizon store in Fairbanks to let us use their wifi. When we have the magical intersection of internet service and a prepared blog, we still need to re-size the selected, cropped and edited pictures to a lesser resolution as the high resolution pictures won't upload.

Several folks have corresponded with us with very helpful suggestions on how to improve content. We are most appreciative of those comments and will continue to welcome your ideas. Thank you all for your patience as we find our way on this new to us process !

Back to the trip:

For the last leg of our trip with Becky, John and Juniper on board, we drive from Homer to Portage Valley, just outside Anchorage.

 The little one loved the local visitor center

Tom and Kris stop for a quick look at a Russian village – Ninilchik. Now with 750 residents, Ninilchik was originally settled in the 1840 by Russian colonists before the Alaska Purchase. A few people still speak Russian dialect.

The very charming Russian Orthodox Church of Transfiguration is a popular tourist site. Popular is relative … when we were there, the parking lot was jammed … with 10 cars in there at the same time. Visitors are only allowed an outside look.

Portage Valley is 14 miles long, having been carved out tens of thousands of years ago by Portage Glacier, which is still actively receding. There are still 5 other glaciers visible from the valley. We could see them from the fishing pond (that didn't have fish) which was a short walk from our campsite. It was fun trying !

 The valley is characterized by VERY steep cliffs and brisk running streams.  It is lush from all the rain and mist.  The town of Portage was completely destroyed in the Alaska earthquake in 1964 and never re-built.

 

 

For the last tour day with the kids, we went to Girdwood and Alyeska. Girdwood, the town, is surrounded by seven permanent glaciers.    It was originally a supply camp for gold miners. Now with a year round population of 2000 people there are many winter and summer activities. Girdwood was completely destroyed during the 1964 earthquake, and the land permanently dropped below mean high tide line. So the town was moved and rebuilt 3 miles further inland.

Alyeska is an alpine ski area in the small town of Girdwood. It is Alaska's largest ski resort. We rode the 60 passenger aerial tramway to near the top of the mountain.

There are many kettle ponds (left over from receding glaciers) below the tram lift

 There was still snow up top so even in July, we played in the snow.

 

  There are many popular summer activities including mountain biking (bikes go up on the ski lifts),walking trails and hand hang gliding  (not for us) .

We bid farewell to the kids, moped around the the 'empty' camper, straightened things up a bit and planned the next few days. Things are mighty quiet without them around.

With one more full day in the area, we took a morning boat ride on Portage Lake and the afternoon in Whittier. Tom took advantage of his seniority. Burrrr, THAT was a cold ride!! Portage Lake was formed from the receding Portage Glacier. Nothing grows in the lake – it will not sustain life. The water temperature hovers around 37 degrees.

Portage Glacier is only 6 miles long and has receded substantially since 1958.

The drive to Whittier is just around the corner from our campground. Yeah ... Right. To get to Whittier, one needs to drive through the Anton Anderson Tunnel, which connects Portage Valley to the town of Whittier. It is a single lane road controlled by a complex computerized traffic control system with a lighted gate system, alternating eastbound, westbound, and train traffic. It is the second longest (2.5 miles) highway tunnel and the longest combined rail and highway tunnel in North America. It is very strange to be driving in the tunnel, on railroad tracks, where the RV tires keep 'tracking' in and around the train rails, hoping the whole time we don't see the lights of an oncoming train! Round trip tolls are calculated based on vehicle length. Our toll was $12. The speed limit is 25 mph. Construction of the tunnel was completed in in 1943 for train, and road access to and through the tunnel was completed in 2000.

Whittier – Small town with year round population of about 220. During WWII, Whittier had a military facility which was the major debarkation point for American soldiers, cargo and petroleum to military bases further to the north. It was strategically valuable for is ice-free deep water port. Some of the old military buildings remain. Many who live there, live in the same condo complex. The town was severely damaged in the 1964 earthquake and 13 people died. The city economy rests on fishing and increasing tourism.

 

 

 

There is a large boat launch and retrieval station right in the middle of town.  A traffic director manages the flow of two parallel ramps with boats constantly coming and going.

 

 

  Kris tried fishing … again. Herring were the only fish to be had. The only way to have caught a salmon, would have been to wait for high tide … 10:30 p.m. That wasn't going to happen, so we headed back to camp.

 

  One the way back, we tried one more time to fish, but a police officer threw us off our roadside parking area. That evening, the campground had a sing along where people brought musical instruments, played together, and there were Robert Service (famous Alaskan poet) readings. There was a great sense of community among the travelers.

The plan was to head to Anchorage next. We had been following posts on the Lazy Daze forum from someone who alerted people against trying to get a campsite in Seward on a weekend – it's way too crowded. So we flip-flopped our schedule to go to Seward next, followed by Anchorage.

Bye Bye Portage Valley

Next Post - Seward