Chugach Adventures

We had an amazing day of adventure at Spencer Glacier Lake, thanks to Chugach Adventures. Our guide, Illiya Pekich, was a fabulous tour guide for us as he paddled our raft across the lake to the edge of the glacier, stopping along the way to take photos of people in the raft, and pointing out interesting facts about icebergs and the glacier. After rowing us back from the glacier to Chugach Adventures’ base camp, he and Emily hosted an elegantly prepared fresh wild salmon dinner that was gourmet all the way – including white wine spritzer with fresh blueberries and strawberries, and chilled with iceberg ice from the lake. They treated our group like royalty, from beginning to end. Looking forward to my next adventure with Chugach Adventures!

I love it! We did the Spencer Glacier Lake tour with some friends from out of town. I have heard great things about this company and knew it would make the perfect highlight to our friends trip! We definitely were not disappointed! We saw an eagle feeding her freaking babies form the observation deck on the train ride, countless intense aqua blue icebergs, incredible awe inspiring Spencer Glacier up close. We had two awesome guides Erin & Carson, both incredibly knowledgable about the area, glacier and lake. We had the lake to ourselves on a day that could not have been more perfect unless the boat was filled with puppies. Seriously you should consider the puppies… This will definitely be our recommended go to excursion for anyone visiting!

This was a great adventure!
You board the train in Anchorage (if coming from Anchorage) and ride it to the Spencer Whistle Stop. It’s about a 3 hr ride and stops in Portage and Whittier. You get a narrated tour during the trip and may even spot some wildlife. The guides come find you on the train and go over liability and give you boots. Hint: If you have your own rain boots, bring those. The ones they provide don’t have much traction and are large.
You then get off at the Spencer Glacier stop and they transport you via bus or can to rafting or canoeing. I had initially signed up for the float, but was able to switch to the canoe. Hint: Go for the canoe, it’s a better trip.
The floats go down the river. The canoes paddle across the lake to the glacier and then hike up onto the glacier. Since my objective was to touch a glacier, the canoe was the better option. Don’t worry about the canoe being too strenuous. I’m not very outdoorsy and it was relatively easy — and fun! It’s a much smaller group than the float. There were just 12 of us divided into 2 canoes.
The guides were awesome. Very knowledgable and friendly. And I got to stand on a glacier!
The only way to get to the Spencer Glacier is via train. So it’s incredibly peaceful and uncrowded. We were literally the only ones on the lake.
After the canoeing trip (about 2.5 hours), you return to the train stop, take the train to Portage, and then get on a motor coach to Anchorage. This saves a lot of hours on the return trip.
All in all, I had a good time and would recommend it.

This is a review for the Spencer Glacier Iceberg Float. If traveling from Anchorage this activity, while it has it’s moments, is not worth the trek. If arriving by Alaskan Railroad the journey takes a surprising four and one half hours, due to the train moving somewhat slow but it really ventures out of the way to pick people up at Whittier (and the train stopped there for 40 minutes) then backtracks to Portage wasting a large amount of valuable time. As the bus ride back took barely over an hour this was frustrating that this aspect of the journey was not better planned.
The excursion itself starts out great with nice vistas of the Spencer Glacier. You commence your journey by floating around nearby icebergs — large chunks of ice that have fallen off the glacier. You even get to touch some of the icebergs and I enjoyed tearing off a small piece and making an iceberg popsicle. I do wish we had ventured closer to the glacier (it looked beuatiful) but instead we started down the river. While there were a couple small rapids (strong class one to weak class two) at the onset that were fun, within fifteen minutes all the best parts were over and the rest of the float was uneventful and actually became boring. The scenery is nice, but nothing like of the glaicer and ice bergs, no wildlife was spotted (other than seaguls, a couple flies and a construction worker) and the rest of the water was quite tame. Furthermore the seating in the rafts were not very comfortable.
The rafts hold up to eight passengers (plus a guide) and boots, life jackets and optional rain ponchos are provided. If you are in the front expect to get splashed a bit at the beginning but otherwise you will stay dry (if it is not raining). Mosquitoes were not an issue in his area. The guides were competent and friendly.
I had been informed by the agency I booked with there was a provided «deli style lunch» but this turned out to be untrue (not sure whether Chugach provided bad information or the agency was misinformed). There were light snacks served, but poor quality and oddly not until a stop at a sand bar towards the very end of the trip — it seemed like a sly way to market the trip as being fifteen minutes longer than it really was.
If you are staying in Portage or Whittier and want a sedate outdoor activity this might be an adequate choice but if coming from further away or interested in something with an excitement factor or opportunities to view wildlife this is an excursion to avoid.