Portage Lake (1994)
60.783208°N 148.840975°W

View of Burns Glacier (in the distance) and ice within Portage Lake taken near the Begich, Boggs Visitor Center in 1994. 7/10/1994

Lake Portage (2010)
60.781708°N 148.842019°W

View of Burns Glacier (in the distance) with the absence of ice in Lake Portage taken near the Begich, Boggs Visitor Center in 2010. 6/18/2010 1:59:14 PM

Begich, Boggs Visitor Center

View of the Begich, Boggs Visitor Center with ice from Portage Glacier floating in the water. 7/10/1994

Portage Lake
60.782569°N 148.842503°W

The photograph was taken from on top of the terminal moraine formed by Portage Glacier in the early 1900s. The ice in the lake has calved from Portage Glacier which cannot be seen in the image. 7/10/1994

The Begich, Boggs Visitor Center near Portage Glacier is only about 50 miles outside of Anchorage and provides an excellent viewing area for glaciers.

Visitors can view the Burns Glacier at the end of Portage Lake from the Center. The photographs of Burns glacier presented here were taken in 1994 and 2010. You can see that the glacier has thinned and receded over this time period. Note also that there is no ice in Portage Lake in the 2010 photograph probably because the thickness of ice from the source glacier (Portage Glacier) has thinned.
Lake Portage was formed through the deposition of a terminal moraine in the vicinity of the visitor center which essentially dammed the lake. In fact, Portage Glacier extended to where the visitor center sits today in the early 1900s and has now receded beyond view up the southwest valley. You can see the remnants of the terminal moraine in the till that exists outside the center (boulders mixed with various other sized sediments) .

Portage Glacier

Portage Glacier is a glacier on the Kenai Peninsula of the U.S. state of Alaska and is included within the Chugach National Forest. It is located south of Portage Lake and 6 km (4 mi) west of Whittier.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage Glacier