Group Hike to Byron Glacier

This short day hike—with an easily accessible trailhead a few hundred meters from the Begich Boggs Visitor Center—offers you big views of the Byron Glacier. The glacier itself lies just beyond the end of a flat, well-maintained trail up a narrow, glacier-scoured valley south of the Portage Lake.
Byron Glacier descends from the same ice field that feeds both Portage Glacier on the lake and Blackstone Glacier in Prince William Sound. The trail is a real-time demonstration of how an ecosystem rebounds from the ice age, with large trees and forest giving way to alder thickets, which in turn morph into lichen-dotted rock only recently exposed by retreating ice. The upper valley is rugged and raw—with silt-blackened debris covering ice—offering an austere feel for authentic glacial terrain, as though you were on an adventure deep in Alaska’s coastal backcountry.