Driving Tours

Out from Anchorage: Turnagain Arm & Portage Glacier

One of the world's great drives starts in Anchorage and leads roughly 50 miles south on the Seward Highway to Portage Glacier. It's the trip, not the destination, that makes it worthwhile. The two-lane highway along Turnagain Arm, chipped from the foot of the rocky Chugach Mountains, provides a platform to see a magnificent, ever-changing, mostly untouched landscape full of wildlife. I've listed the sights in the style of a highway log, for there are interesting stops all the way along the road. It will take at least half a day round-trip, and there's plenty to do for an all-day excursion. Use your headlights for safety even in daylight, and be patient if you get stuck behind a summertime line of cars -- if you pass, you'll just come up behind another line ahead. Mileage markers count down from Anchorage. Bus tours follow the route and visit Portage Glacier. Gray Line of Alaska (tel. 800/544-2206 or 907/277-5581; www.graylineofalaska.com) offers a 7-hour trip that includes a stop in Girdwood and a boat ride on Portage Lake for $72 adults, $36 children 12 and under, twice daily in summer.

You can also see this incredible scenery -- and more -- from a train, although, of course, without stopping along the Arm for hikes or wildlife viewing. The Alaska Railroad (tel. 800/544-0552 or 907/265-2494; www.alaskarailroad.com) operates summer trains to Whittier and Seward that trace Turnagain Arm on the way (you can book the train and a Prince William Sound day boat with one call). Definitely also consider the railroad's day-trip tour to the glaciated interior of the Kenai Peninsula, beyond Turnagain Arm, where no road extends. That unique tour, called the "Glacier Discovery Train to Grandview," begins in Anchorage, Girdwood, Whittier, or Portage; if starting from Anchorage, the return from Portage is by bus. The tour costs $102 adults from Anchorage or Girdwood, $79 from Portage or Whittier, and roughly half-price for children. There are several choices of what do on your day in the backcountry: Take a hike led by a Forest Ranger at Spenser Glacier, go white-water rafting, or even use the whistle-stop service for your own, self-guided hike or expedition. In 2007, the railroad and Forest Service announced ambitious plans for a backcountry network of trails, campsites, public cabins, and rail stations, which will take a number of years to complete, but parts of which are already usable.

Potter Marsh (Mile 117) -- Heading south from Anchorage, the Seward Highway descends a bluff to cross a broad marsh formed by water impounded behind the tracks of the Alaska Railroad. The marsh has a boardwalk from which you can watch a huge variety of birds. Salad-green grasses grow from sparkling, pond-green water.

Potter Section House (Mile 115) -- Located at the south end of Potter Marsh, the section house was an early maintenance station for the Alaska Railroad. Today it contains the offices of Chugach State Park, open during normal business hours, and, outside, a few old train cars and interpretive displays. Just across the road is the trail head for the Turnagain Arm Trail. It's a mostly level path running down the arm well above the highway, with great views breaking now and then through the trees. Hike as far as you like and then backtrack to your car; or, if you can arrange a one-way walk with a ride back from the other end, continue 4 miles to the McHugh Creek picnic area and trail head, or 9 miles to Windy Corner.

McHugh Creek (Mile 111) -- Four miles south of Potter is an excellent state park picnic area and a challenging day hike with a 3,000-foot elevation gain to Rabbit Lake, which sits in a tundra mountain bowl, or to the top of 4,301-foot McHugh Peak. You don't have to climb all the way; there are spectacular views within an hour of the road. From this point onward, most of the stops are on the right or ocean side of the road: Plan your stops on the outbound trip, not on the return, when you would have to make left turns across traffic.

Beluga Point (Mile 110) -- The state highway department probably didn't need to put up scenic overlook signs on this pull-out, 1 1/2 miles south of McHugh Creek -- you would have figured it out on your own. The terrain is simply awesome, as the highway traces the edge of Turnagain Arm, below the towering cliffs of the Chugach Mountains. If the tide and salmon runs are right, you may see beluga whales, which chase the fish toward fresh water. Sometimes they overextend and strand themselves by the dozens in the receding tide, farther along, but they usually aren't harmed. The pull-out has spotting scopes to improve the viewing. The farther right-hand pull-outs over the next few miles have interpretive signs about the 1895 gold rush in this area and other topics.

Windy Point (Mile 106) -- Be on the lookout on the mountain side of the road for Dall sheep picking their way along the cliffs. It's a unique spot, for the sheep get much closer to people here than is usual in the wild; apparently, they believe they're safe. Windy Point is the prime spot, but you also have a good chance of seeing sheep virtually anywhere along this stretch of road. If cars are stopped, that's probably why; get well off the road and pay attention to traffic, which will still be passing at high speeds.

You may also see windsurfers in the gray, silty waters of the Arm. They're crazy. The water is a mixture of glacial runoff and the near-freezing ocean. Besides, the movement of water that creates the huge tides causes riverlike currents, with standing waves like rapids.

Tidal Wave -- Tides in Turnagain Arm rise and fall over a greater range than anywhere else in the United States, with a difference between an extreme high and low of more than 41 feet. When the tide is rising, the water can grow deeper by as much as 7 feet an hour, or a foot of water every 8 1/2 minutes. If your foot gets stuck in the mud, it takes less than an hour to drown. (Yes, that has really happened.) Amazing as that speed is, the tide here can go even faster. A breathtaking wall of water up to 6 feet tall, called a bore tide, can roar up Turnagain Arm twice a day. To see the ocean do such a thing is so unfamiliar it looks almost like science fiction, as the wide arc of foam rushes ahead of a noticeably deeper sea. You can (theoretically) predict the bore tide. Get a tide-table book or look up the tide change on the Web (start at http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov and pull down "Products"). Note the size of the tidal range for the day you are visiting: The bore tide will be most noticeable during periods of large tides. (The magnitude of tides varies on the lunar cycle.) Find the time of low tide in Anchorage. Now add the following intervals to the time of the Anchorage low for a prediction of when the bore tide will pass each of these spots on the highway:

• Beluga Point (Mile 110): 1 hour, 15 minutes
• Bird Point (Mile 96): 2 hours, 15 minutes
• Twentymile River (Mile 80): 4 hours

The best viewing is Beluga Point to Bird Point; at the latter wayside, a set of signs explain the tides.

Indian Valley (Mile 104) -- Up the road by the Turnagain House restaurant is the Indian Valley trail head, a gold rush-era trail that ultimately leads 24 miles to the other side of the mountains. The path, while often muddy, rises less steeply than other trails along the Arm.

Bird Ridge Trail (Mile 102) -- This is a lung-busting climb of 3,000 vertical feet in a little over a mile. It starts with an easy, accessible trail, then rises steeply to views that start at impressive and get more amazing as you climb. With the southern exposure, it's dry early in the year.

Bird Creek (Mile 101) -- If you stop, use the lot on the left side of the road before you reach the creek. There is also a short trail, interpretive signs, an overlook, and a platform that makes fishing easier for people with disabilities. Pink salmon run from late June to mid-August, silver salmon mostly in August. A scenic bike trail starts here and runs 10 miles to Girdwood, much of it on an older highway alignment.

Bird Point (Mile 96) -- The remarkable wayside here is not to be missed. A paved pathway rises up to a bedrock outcropping with a simply wonderful view -- all the severity of the Turnagain Arm, but framed by the soft green of a freshwater wetland with a beaver lodge. Take a look at the fascinating interpretive signs on many subjects.

The Flats (Miles 96-90) -- At Bird Point, the highway descends from the mountainside to the mud flats. Several pull-outs on the right side of the highway have interpretive signs. At high tide, water comes right up to the road. At low tide, the whole Arm narrows to a thin, winding channel through the mud. The Arm is not practically navigable and navigational charts are not even available. Few have ever tried to navigate it other than gold prospectors in rowboats a century ago or today's occasional death-defying canoeist or kayaker. The first to try was Capt. James Cook, in 1778, as he was searching for the Northwest Passage on his final, fatal voyage of discovery (he was killed by Hawaiians later that year). He named this branch of Cook Inlet Turnagain Arm because the strength of the currents and shoals foiled the boat he sent to check it out. Cook believed the Inlet was a river and left well before reaching its head; but when his ships got back to England, geographers believed his report left open the possibility that this could be a route to the Northwest Passage, requiring another expedition led by George Vancouver to come and make sure. Vancouver noted in disappointment that another day of work by Cook could have saved him immense effort.

Turnoff to Girdwood (Mile 90) -- The attractions of Girdwood, covered below, are worth a visit, but the shopping center here at the intersection is not chief among them. Stop for a simple meal or a restroom break (the convenience store has large public restrooms), or to fill your gas tank for the last time for many a mile.

Twentymile River (Mile 80) -- Three species of salmon and a small smelt, the eulachon, known locally as the hooligan, spawn in this river. In the spring you can see Native families dip-netting the hooligan. There is good bird-watching here and from turnouts farther on, but venturing out on Turnagain Arm's tidal mud carries the real risk of getting stuck in quicksand-like mud and drowning in the tide. Don't do it.

Old Portage (Mile 80) -- All along the flats at the head of Turnagain Arm are large marshes full of what looks like standing driftwood. These are trees killed by saltwater that flowed in when the 1964 quake lowered the land as much as 10 feet. On the right, .7 mile past the Twentymile River and across from the rail depot, a few ruins of the abandoned town of Portage are still visible, more than 40 years after the great earthquake.

Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center (Mile 79) -- The nonprofit center, developed with visitors in mind, gives homes to injured and orphaned deer, moose, owls, elk, bison, musk ox, bear, fox, and caribou (tel. 907/783-2025; www.awcc.org). Visitors drive through the 200-acre compound to see the animals in fenced enclosures as large as 110 acres -- you can often get a close look at the animals, but the larger enclosures give them natural vegetation and the ability to get away from view, if they want to. There's no need to visit both here and the Alaska Zoo. The zoo has more kinds of animals and it's a fun place to stroll, but the cages there are much smaller and often seem constricting. Here the animals' settings are more natural and perhaps more humane, but viewing is car based. A big log gift shop and outdoor snack bar are at the end of the tour. Admission is $7.50 for adults, $5 for military, seniors, and children 4 to 12, with a maximum of $25 per vehicle. In summer, it's open daily from 8am to 8pm (last vehicle in at 7:30 pm); in winter, daily from 10am to 5pm.

Portage Glacier (Take the 5 1/2-mile spur road at Mile 78) -- The named attraction has largely melted, receding out of sight of the visitor center. (The glacier you can see is Burns.) When the center was built in 1985, it was predicted that Portage Glacier would keep floating on its 800-foot-deep lake until 2020. Instead, it withdrew to the far edge of the lake in 1995. Today the exhibits in the lakeside Begich-Boggs Visitor Center focus on the Chugach National Forest as a whole rather than just the glacier, and they're worth an hour or two to become oriented to the area's nature, history, and lifestyles. Children and adults find much to hold their interest here. To see Portage Glacier itself, take the road toward Whittier that branches to the left just before the visitor center and stop at a pullout beyond the first (toll-free) tunnel, or take the boat mentioned below.

Several short trails start near the center. Check at the center for rangers-led nature walks. The Moraine Trail is an easy, paved quarter-mile. Another trail leads less than a mile to Byron Glacier, in case you're interested in getting up close to some ice. Always dress warmly, as cold winds are the rule in this funnel-like valley.

A day boat operated by Gray Line of Alaska (tel. 800/478-6388, 907/277-5581 for reservations, or 907/783-2983 at the lake; www.graylineofalaska.com) traverses the lake to within a few hundred yards of Portage Glacier on hour-long tours, ice conditions permitting. It costs $29 adults, $15 ages 12 and under, and goes five times daily in summer every 90 minutes, starting at 10:30am. If this is your only chance to see a glacier in Alaska, it's a good choice, but if your itinerary includes any of the great glaciers in Prince William Sound, Kenai Fjords National Park, or the like, you won't be as impressed by Portage.

Sandwiches and other simple meals are sold at a cafeteria near the visitor center called the Portage Glacier Lodge (tel. 907/783-3117).

There are no lodgings in Portage, but two Forest Service campgrounds are on the road to the visitor center, with 72 sites between them. At the Williwaw Campground, there's also a place to watch red salmon spawning in mid-August, but no fishing.

Gone but Not Forgotten -- The Begich-Boggs Visitor Center at Portage Glacier is named for Hale Boggs, who was U.S. House majority leader, and Rep. Nick Begich, then Alaska's lone congressman, who disappeared together in a small plane during Begich's 1972 reelection bid. The most likely theory is that the wings iced up in Portage Pass, causing a crash into Prince William Sound just beyond the mountains. No trace was ever found -- as with many other Alaskan planes that have simply flown off into oblivion. Begich was reelected anyway. His opponent, Republican Don Young, later won a special election and continued more than 35 years as Alaska's only congressman. Boggs's wife, Lindy, went on to serve out his term and eight more. Boggs's daughter, Cokie Roberts, is the famous broadcast journalist. Begich's son, Mark, was elected mayor of Anchorage in 2003 and ran for the U.S. Senate in 2008.