Okay, I remember the forecast was showers all week and they don't lie. It poured all day .. and who cares ... we’re walkers and we walk no matter the weather.

Today, breakfast was from 7 to 8 at the Commons and it was quite good. Eggs, bacon, potatoes, fresh fruit, juice, and coffee. Also, they put together a good box lunch for our day-filled journey. By 8:30, the buses were loaded for our trip to Portage Glacier (Chugach State Park). Took about an hour to get to our first stop .. enough time to spend in the gift/coffee shop and then board the boat. Found a great buy of a jacket, reversible, fleece lined, water resistant for just 40 bucks – no tax. And was I glad I bought that before our trip because I needed it.  

Our guide was from the State Parks and was very good. And, yes, the glaciers are blue – incredible! We donned our new weather gear and headed up top where it was very windy and cold, though we got some great pictures of the glacier. The blue, if we remember from our science days, is caused from the fact that every spectrum of color is captured except for the blue. And the ribbon of dark running down from top to bottom is the flow of water running under. Spent a good deal of time near the glacier seeing all the jags and crevices. On our way back to the Center, we had several groups gathering to get pictures. One of our group had snagged a piece of ice from a bit of the glacier .. When the ice breaks off from the glacier it is called calving. "Ice calving or iceberg calving is a form of ice ablation or ice disruption. It is the sudden release and breaking away of a mass of ice from a glacier, iceberg, ice front, ice shelf, or crevasse. The ice that breaks away can be classified as an iceberg, but may also be a growler, bergy bit, or a crevasse wall breakaway."

After our tour of Portage Glacier we headed for the Begich, Boggs Visitor Center for a short movie (Voices from the Ice) and the beginning of our walk. The rain had not let up so picture taking was at a minimum though I did score some fairly good shots. I did walk the 10K (Trail of Blue Ice) … at the 5k point I decided I was already soaked through so another 5k wasn’t going to make any difference. It is beautiful country walking in the rain forest, which is as beautiful as our Olympic Rain Forest, though without the glaciers.

The 10k walkers picked up the bus at Moose Flats Day Use Area – I imagine in less than soaking weather it is a great place to hang for the day. We were very happy to get back on board. It ended up that we were the sweep bus and therefore last to leave. Next stop was the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center (AWCC). Not a very large reserve, however, it was filled with bison, elk, black bears, and other native Alaskan wildlife – not what we see down south. These animals have been injured or orphaned at a young age and cannot return to the wild. It was a short guided tour (on the bus) though well worth the trip. We were to have 45 minutes in the gift shop (which meant we would not leave until 5pm), though we let our driver know we did not want that much time, and we were good to go just after 4. YES! So, an hour later we were “home” and in the showers…  Gave us more breathing room to relax before dinner at 7.

It was a long, filled day and fun though very wet.