Portage Lake & Glacier

This is Wednesday and we drove over to Portage Lake to take a boat tour.  Although it appears to be dark and overcast in the first two pictures, the day was beautiful.

There were several glaciers around the lake - this one was behind the visitor center.

This is another one.

Here is the main one - the Portage Glacier.  It is about 1/2 mile wide and 5 miles long.  Years ago the small glacier on the left was much larger and butted up against the Portage Glacier, but it has been melting and has receded to what you see now.

This is one of the streams flowing from another glacier.  Because there is so much silt in the water, no fish can live it the lake.

 This is Portage Glacier.

This is one of the ice chuncks that broke off - only about 20% is above the surface.  The water temp is about 36 degrees.

Here, the top 300 feet is visible above the water - there is another 600 feet below.  The Forest person said that when the ice breaks off under the water, it will come shooting up right out of the water.  As a result, they don't dare bring the boat any closer (we are about 300 yards out).

Later, we drove into Whittier - another post.