Portage Glacier – Haunted Glacier in Girdwood, Alaska
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Full Address: Portage Glacier Road, Girdwood, AK 99587
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Portage Glacier sits approximately 50 miles southeast of Anchorage in the Chugach National Forest. This massive river of ice has captivated visitors since the early 1900s with its breathtaking beauty. But beneath the stunning azure ice and pristine wilderness lies a darker history few tourists ever hear about. The glacier and its surrounding valley are steeped in tragic tales of disappearances and unexplained phenomena.
Local indigenous Dena’ina people avoided this valley for centuries before European settlement arrived. Their oral traditions spoke of restless spirits trapped within the ice itself. When the Alaska Railroad pushed through in 1914, construction workers reported strange occurrences near the glacier’s face. These early accounts would become the foundation for over a century of paranormal activity.
The 1964 Good Friday earthquake dramatically altered the landscape surrounding Portage Glacier forever. The 9.2 magnitude quake caused massive subsidence that submerged the entire townsite of Portage beneath Turnagain Arm. Homes, businesses, and the bodies of those who didn’t escape now rest under cold saltwater. Many believe the traumatic event intensified supernatural activity throughout the valley.
Modern visitors to Portage Glacier often report feeling watched from the surrounding mountains and ice caves. Park rangers and tour guides have documented hundreds of unexplained incidents over the decades. The combination of natural beauty and unsettling energy makes this one of Alaska’s most haunted locations. Few places on Earth blend scenic wonder with such persistent ghostly encounters.
Historical Background
Portage Glacier formed thousands of years ago during the last ice age’s retreat. The glacier reached its maximum extent around 1852 before beginning its steady recession. By 1914, the Alaska Railroad established a route through Portage Valley to connect Anchorage with Whittier. The railroad brought the first significant wave of non-indigenous people to this remote area.
Construction crews working on the railroad reported their first strange experiences in winter 1913. Workers claimed to see figures moving across the glacier at night when temperatures dropped below zero. Three men disappeared without a trace during a December blizzard that year. Their bodies were never recovered despite extensive search efforts by their fellow laborers.
The original Portage townsite was established in 1916 along the southern shore of what is now Portage Lake. At its peak, approximately 200 residents called this isolated community home year-round. The town featured a post office, school, general store, and several boarding houses for railroad workers. Life in Portage was harsh but the stunning glacier views made many residents overlook the extreme conditions.
On March 27, 1964, the Good Friday earthquake struck at 5:36 PM Alaska Standard Time. The ground around Portage dropped six to eight feet almost instantaneously during the four-minute quake. Tidal waters from Turnagain Arm rushed inland and consumed the entire townsite within hours. Residents had mere minutes to grab essential belongings and flee to higher ground.
Several people died in the Portage area during the earthquake and subsequent flooding. Official records list seven confirmed deaths but locals insist the true number was higher. Bodies swept away by the turbulent waters were never found or properly buried. The submerged ghost town remains beneath Portage Lake to this day, visible during extreme low tides. This unresolved trauma created what paranormal investigators call a “residual haunting hotspot” throughout the valley.
Paranormal Activity Summary
The most commonly reported phenomenon at Portage Glacier involves disembodied voices echoing across the ice. Visitors consistently describe hearing cries for help in both English and Russian coming from the glacier. These voices typically manifest during early morning hours between 4 AM and 6 AM. No natural explanation has ever accounted for these clear, desperate-sounding calls.
Mysterious figures appear on the glacier’s surface when no living person could possibly be there. These shadow people are most frequently spotted near the glacier’s terminus where ice meets water. Witnesses describe humanoid shapes that move deliberately across dangerous crevasse fields before vanishing completely. Photography of these figures consistently fails, with cameras malfunctioning or producing only blank images.
Temperature anomalies plague the visitor center and surrounding trails regardless of seasonal conditions. Pockets of extreme cold measuring 20-30 degrees below ambient temperature appear without warning. These cold spots move and seem to follow certain individuals throughout the viewing areas. Thermal imaging equipment has documented these unexplained temperature drops on multiple occasions.
Electronic equipment experiences frequent failures near Portage Glacier that technicians cannot explain. Cameras, phones, and GPS devices drain completely dead batteries within minutes of exposure. Compasses spin wildly and refuse to settle on magnetic north in specific locations. Vehicle batteries die in the parking areas with alarming regularity despite being recently replaced.
The sound of cracking ice is normal near any glacier environment in summer months. However, visitors report hearing massive cracking sounds during deep winter when glacier movement should be minimal. These explosive booms shake the ground and echo through the valley without any corresponding ice fall. Seismic monitoring equipment detects no activity during these phantom cracking episodes that terrify witnesses.
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Ghost Stories & Reports
The most famous ghost of Portage Glacier is known locally as the “Ice Walker.” This figure appears as a man dressed in 1910s-era railroad work clothes stumbling across the glacier. Witnesses report he seems disoriented and desperately searching for something he’s lost. The apparition matches descriptions of Thomas McKenzie, a railroad worker who vanished in December 1913.
McKenzie’s disappearance was documented in Alaska Railroad records and Anchorage newspaper archives. He left the construction camp one evening to check track conditions near the glacier. Fellow workers reported McKenzie seemed agitated and mentioned hearing someone calling his name from the ice. His lantern was found the next morning at the glacier’s edge but Thomas McKenzie was gone.
A second prominent spirit is the “Woman in White” seen near the submerged Portage townsite. She appears on the shore of Portage Lake during foggy conditions wearing a 1960s-style dress. Witnesses describe her as middle-aged with dark hair, often wringing her hands anxiously. She seems to be searching the water’s surface before fading away like morning mist.
This apparition is believed to be Margaret Sorenson, a Portage resident who died during the 1964 earthquake. Margaret’s seven-year-old daughter was swept away by the initial wave of seawater flooding the town. Her body was one of several never recovered from the turbulent waters. Margaret herself died of a heart attack while fleeing to safety, witnesses said her final words were her daughter’s name.
Multiple visitors have reported encountering phantom children playing near the Byron Glacier trail. These child spirits appear solid and real until they suddenly vanish mid-laugh or mid-run. The children are described as wearing outdated clothing from various decades spanning the 1920s through 1960s. Some witnesses claim to recognize specific children who died in accidents throughout Portage Valley’s history.
Park ranger Edwin Thorpe documented an encounter in his official incident report from July 1998. Thorpe observed three children playing tag near the Byron Glacier trailhead around 9 PM. He approached to remind them the area closed at dusk and ensure they had adult supervision. The children looked directly at him, smiled, then simply weren’t there anymore in the blink of an eye.
The “Russian Explorer” is another frequently reported apparition near the glacier viewing area. This ghost appears as a bearded man in 19th-century Russian fur clothing and boots. He seems to be surveying the landscape and taking notes in a leather journal. Historical records indicate several Russian explorers passed through this region in the 1850s and 1860s.
One particularly tragic legend involves a 1952 climbing accident on the mountains surrounding Portage Glacier. Four experienced mountaineers from Anchorage attempted a winter ascent of an unnamed peak. An avalanche swept the entire party off the mountain into a deep crevasse. Recovery teams found only two bodies; the other two remained entombed in the glacier’s depths.
Climbers and hikers report seeing two figures roped together struggling upward on that same peak. The phantom climbers appear to be making progress before an unseen force sweeps them away. Witnesses hear screams echoing through the valley as the apparitions disappear. This residual haunting replays several times each winter according to local mountaineering clubs.
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Most Haunted Spot
The shoreline of Portage Lake directly facing the glacier’s terminus is considered the most actively haunted location. This area experiences the highest concentration of paranormal phenomena including apparitions, voices, and equipment malfunctions. Rangers have nicknamed this spot “Dead Man’s Shore” though they avoid using that name with tourists.
The specific coordinates where the old Portage townsite lies submerged produce the strongest supernatural activity. Visitors standing above the ghost town during low tide report overwhelming feelings of sadness and dread. Some sensitive individuals claim to hear muffled screams and the sound of rushing water. Psychics and mediums refuse to approach this area, claiming the psychic residue is unbearable.
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Can You Visit?
Portage Glacier is open to the public year-round through Chugach National Forest access roads. The Begich Boggs Visitor Center operates seasonally from May through September with daily hours. No entrance fee is required to access the glacier viewing areas or hiking trails. The Forest Service maintains multiple trails and observation points throughout Portage Valley.
Formal paranormal tours are not currently offered by commercial operators in the area. Independent exploration is permitted on designated trails and public access points only. Photography is fully allowed and encouraged throughout the glacier viewing areas. The visitor center closes at 6 PM during summer months and the entire facility is closed October through April.
Boat tours across Portage Lake to approach the glacier terminus operate from June through mid-September. These hour-long cruises depart from the dock near the visitor center several times daily. Tour guides occasionally mention the area’s haunted reputation though it’s not the tour’s focus. Many paranormal investigators have taken these boat tours specifically to photograph alleged spirit activity.
Best Time to Visit
Paranormal activity at Portage Glacier peaks during the winter months from November through March. The combination of extreme darkness, cold temperatures, and isolation seems to intensify supernatural manifestations. Most documented apparitions and voice phenomena occur between 4 AM and 6 AM year-round. These pre-dawn hours align with the times when historical tragedies occurred in the valley.
The anniversary of the 1964 earthquake on March 27th produces particularly intense paranormal activity. Visitors on this date report heightened encounters with the Woman in White near the submerged townsite. Local paranormal investigation teams plan annual expeditions around this date specifically. Full moon periods also correlate with increased sighting reports according to ranger documentation.
First-Hand Accounts & Eyewitness Reports
Jennifer Patterson, a photographer from Seattle, documented her 2015 experience in a detailed blog post. She visited Portage Glacier in February to capture winter landscape images for a gallery show. While photographing the glacier at dawn, Patterson heard clear voices calling for help from the ice. She recorded audio on her phone that captured the unexplained voices before her device died completely.
Patterson’s audio recording was later analyzed by paranormal researchers at Alaska Paranormal Investigations. The analysis confirmed multiple distinct voices speaking English and what linguists identified as Russian. No living persons were anywhere near the glacier when Patterson made her recording. The audio has been featured in several paranormal documentaries about Alaska’s haunted locations.
David Chen, a Forest Service employee, shared his account in a 2008 interview with Alaska Magazine. Chen was performing routine trail maintenance on the Byron Glacier trail in September 2007. He encountered a man in outdated railroad clothing walking toward the glacier without proper equipment. When Chen called out a safety warning, the figure turned, made eye contact, then vanished.
Chen immediately reported the incident to his supervisor and filed an official witness statement. He described the man’s clothing in detail matching photographs of early railroad workers. Chen remained adamant he saw a solid, three-dimensional person, not a trick of light. He transferred to a different district shortly after the encounter, telling colleagues the experience shook him deeply.
Tour boat captain Sarah Reinhardt has operated Portage Lake cruises since 2003. She estimates witnessing unexplained phenomena on approximately twenty percent of her tours over the years. Reinhardt describes frequent sightings of figures walking on the glacier where access is impossible. Her passengers have photographed strange orbs and light anomalies that appear only in images.
In June 2019, Reinhardt’s entire tour group of 37 people heard children’s laughter echoing across the lake. The sound was clear and close despite no children being aboard and no other boats nearby. Reinhardt made note of the incident in her captain’s log with passenger signatures confirming the experience. She views the glacier as beautiful but acknowledges something unexplainable exists there.
Paranormal Investigations & Findings
Alaska Paranormal Investigations conducted a formal investigation of Portage Glacier in October 2012. The team spent three nights documenting electromagnetic field fluctuations and temperature anomalies throughout the valley. Their investigation produced over 40 hours of audio and video recordings with multiple unexplained phenomena. The findings were featured in their documentary “Frozen Spirits: Alaska’s Haunted Glaciers.”
Lead investigator Marcus Brennan reported capturing clear EVP recordings of voices speaking Russian near the glacier. His team also documented shadow figures on thermal imaging cameras moving across the ice. Multiple team members experienced equipment failures consistent with previous reports from casual visitors. Brennan concluded Portage Glacier shows “definitive signs of intelligent paranormal activity.”
The location has not been featured on major television paranormal investigation shows like Ghost Adventures or Ghost Hunters. However, several regional paranormal programs have filmed episodes at Portage Glacier with varying results. YouTube channels dedicated to Alaska paranormal research feature numerous investigation videos from the location. These amateur investigations consistently document unexplained voices, cold spots, and electromagnetic field spikes.
Safety Warnings & Legal Restrictions
Visitors must stay on designated trails and observation areas as glacier environments are extremely dangerous. Crevasses, unstable ice, and falling debris pose serious risks to anyone venturing onto the glacier. The Forest Service strictly prohibits accessing the glacier surface without proper mountaineering equipment and expertise. Trespassing onto the glacier can result in citations and rescue costs billed to violators.
Winter conditions create additional hazards including avalanche danger on surrounding slopes and extreme cold. The area is subject to sudden weather changes that can trap unprepared visitors. Cell phone service is unreliable throughout Portage Valley, making emergency communication difficult. Rangers strongly recommend visiting in groups and informing others of your plans before exploring the area.
The submerged Portage townsite is legally off-limits for diving or underwater exploration. The site is considered both historically significant and potentially hazardous to divers. Disturbing any artifacts from the underwater ghost town violates federal historic preservation laws. Additionally, the cold water temperatures and poor visibility make recreational diving extremely dangerous.
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