Explorer Glacier

Access details: drive up Portage Valley until you are as close to the glacier as it seems the road will get you, park, and hike into the woods. You will undoubtedly have to cross some streams and marshes on logs and piles of grass, but if you navigate it well, you can reach your goal without wetting your feet. Once you reach the rocky outwash stream, follow it up to its source. The rocks can be very slippery when wet or snowy, so be careful. Follow the stream up into a narrow canyon directly underneath the glacier, and after a 20' scramble, you will be standing at the foot of the glacier. Accessing the glacier from here is easy, just follow the glacier's western edge uphill for a few hundred feet and you can simply walk onto the relative flatness of the glacier. The use of crampons and ice axes is absolutely manditory, and the use of rope is always recommended for glacier travel.



From the Seward Highway



Looking upglacier from about a quarter-mile above the terminus.





Explorer Glacier exploration, 10/16/2004