The lodge sits on five acres of the Chugach National Forest, on Portage Glacier Road between Anchorage and Whittier. The building is older than most of the trees around it. A wood-frame structure put up in the 1970s, expanded in 1991, it stands under mountains that have stood through every road that ever ran by. From the high country, a long trail of blue glacial ice winds down through the valley and runs almost to our door. People have been pulling off the road here for half a century to look up.

We are a small operation. A café and gift shop on the ground floor. Two RV electrical hookups out back. A sales desk for the Portage Glacier cruise. A kitchen that opens early and closes when the last traveler is fed. We are not a destination. We are a stop on the way to one. But what a way it is, and what a privilege to sit at the edge of all that ice and stone, and offer a hot cup, a warm meal, and a quiet welcome to the people passing through.