PORTAGE, WHITTIER, &, GIRDWOOD

RV Park at Portage Valley

After leaving Anchorage we drove south towards the Kenai and stopped at the Portage Valley RV Park for a couple of nights.  This was a good location with the town of Girdwood and Whittier within a few miles of our location. The location is in the wild , nestled among mountains and lakes and creeks back off the beaten path in the Chugach National Forest.  The Chugach is the 2nd largest National Forest in America and is the home of the Portage Glacier.  After getting set up we headed for the Animal Conservation Center near Girdwood.

  You could see every animal that was Alaskan at this one location.  They had Bears, Moose, Wolves, Caribou, Buffalo, Eagles, Elk and Black Deer.
Then we were off to Girdwood,  is a small village with a huge ski resort, the hotel Ayleska.  The next morning we got our bearings at the visitors center of the US Forest Service, they had a very informative video on the area and an interactive museum of Alaska, definitely worth the time.  Then off to Whittier, a small costal town in the Prince William Sound.  To get to Whittier, one must go through a tunnel that is 2.5 miles, the longest dual tunnel (both autos and trains) in the world.

   There was not much to Whittier so we headed back to catch the sightseeing boat to the Portage Glacier.  This was very inexpensive for Glacier cruises, only $39 per person and $13 for children under 12 years.  Our day was nearing the end but wee had one more place we wanted to see back at Girdwood, the Crow Creek Gold Mine  It is on the National Historical Site and it's said that the first claim was filed in1897.  It was a community set up to mine the creek by panning and hydraulics.  There is no record of the total gold taken from Crow Creek since its beginning but since 1922 until WWII, the mine yielded an average of 700 oz. per month, equating to $1,000,000 per month today.  Tomorrow we head to Homer.