We parked up in Portage valley. Back to forestry services camping with drop toilets and no showers. Strip, bowl and jug and wet wipes for the bits that Donna won't let me use the soap and sponge for. The site is of course heavily wooded with a creek nearby so yet again there could be bears. Donna insists I go to the loo with her in case a bear appears! We followed the 'Blue Ice Trail' down the valley, this links up view points for several hanging glaciers. The sky was grey, there was a threat of rain in the air, where has the good weather gone? We clambered over rocks to get a better view of the Byron glacier. Back in British Columbia I met two guys who adamantly didn't believe in global warming, here below the Byron glacier I met a family who wanted the same photo they had taken 6 years before in front of the glacier but couldn't believe how much it had receded. Regardless of what you believe it's a fact that glaciers all round the world are disappearing. From our base camp at the forestry campsite we visited Whittier. It used to be accessible only by sea or by crossing the glaciers. During world war 2 the US army built a base here and blasted a railway tunnel through the hillside connecting Whittier to Anchorage. In 2000 it was decided to allow cars through the tunnel and now there is a schedule for cars getting in, getting out and the trains of course. We duly waited our time slot to enter the tunnel. I drove and it was bloody awful. The tunnel is narrow, the road and rails are wet and slippy. Very glad to exit on the Whittier side even though we emerged into thick fog. We turned off onto a badly potholed track to park up at the Portage pass trailhead. We hiked higher into even thicker fog, wondering if we were just wasting our time. No view from the pass but as we descended down to Portage lake, Portage Glacier loomed in front of us. A cold sandwich stop sitting on a pebbly shore to take in the view before returning to the fog. Despite a long queue of cars that had entered the tunnel before us, there seemed to be no one about in Whittier. The done thing is an expensive cruise for the day, so we guessed everyone was out on the water enjoying the fog. It's probably great to linger around the harbour on a bright sunny day and admire the surrounding coastal mountains but it was cold, wet, foggy and 11 Dollars to park! We squeezed into a free 2-hour parking space and saw the sites of Whittier in less than 30 minutes. Back in the the tunnel for that dreaded drive. We were back on the other side much earlier than we had anticipated, the weather was dismal so we decided to make tracks to Girdwood. We didn't have the weather to see this area at its best, you can't win them all.