There are only two highways out of Anchorage, the Glenn Highway to the northeast and the Seward Highway south. Today we drove 50 miles down the Seward Highway to Portage Glacier. The road runs alongside Turnagain Arm which is kind of a fjord with very high tides, over 20 feet at times. In the winter huge chunks of frozen mud are tossed around by the tide and left in jagged heaps.
Here is a lenticular cloud, which is my favorite kind. We see them only rarely here, more often up around Mt. McKinley. I think it looks like a flying saucer.
We encountered a bit of ice fog, which helped to block the blinding sun in our eyes. At this time of year, the sun barely rises above the horizon, so sun visors don't help much.
These shots were taken sometime between 11:00 a.m. and noon.
This is the Alaska Railroad track that runs alongside the highway.
We turn on the Portage Glacier Road and cross Portage Creek.
This is part of a new trail called the Trail of Blue Ice which we walked last fall. It was bright with color then. Not so much now.
This is Portage Glacier and lake. You can see the glacier on the right side just down from that pointed mountain. Back when I first moved up here, the glacier came way down into the middle of the lake and you could easily walk to it in the winter (although they advised against it). Plans were made for a beautiful visitor's center there called the Begich-Boggs Visitor Center in honor of Hale Boggs and Nick Begich whose plane disappeared up here in 1972, but by the time the construction was
finished, the glacier had receded so far it could barely be seen from the parking lot. Even with these cold, cold winters, the glacier hasn't come back.
A two-mile tunnel goes through the mountain just past this point and ends up in Whittier on Prince William Sound. Cars and the train take turns going through the tunnel on a strict schedule, coming and going. On this trip, we turned around here, and I took this picture.
I have a few more to share, but I'll do it tomorrow. I don't want to crash anybody's dial-up.