Anchorage Glacier Tours
Anchorage is the only large city in the United States with drivable glacier access in every direction. You can leave downtown after breakfast, stand on ancient blue ice by midday, and be back for dinner. That convenience is why so many trips are sold here — and why the options are harder to compare than they look.
This page lays out every glacier trip bookable from Anchorage, grouped by where it actually goes and what you actually do when you arrive. Prices shown are the lowest published adult rate for each trip. Booking and payment are handled by the operators themselves.
The three glaciers you can reach in a day
Portage Glacier is the closest and the cheapest. It sits about an hour south along the Seward Highway in the Chugach National Forest. You reach the ice by boat across Portage Lake — there is no hiking involved, and no special gear. Portage Glacier Cruise operates all three of these departures on the same vessel.
Matanuska Glacier is the one you walk on. It is roughly two hours northeast of Anchorage on the Glenn Highway, and it is the largest glacier in the United States reachable by car. Because the ice is active, access is guided only — you cannot simply drive up and wander onto it. Greatland Adventures, Welcome Anchorage Tours and Alaska Horizon Adventure each run Matanuska trips with hotel pickup in Anchorage, and the difference between them is group size and vehicle rather than the ice itself.
Knik Glacier is the least visited of the three. It is reached by off-road vehicle and, on some trips, by kayak among the icebergs at the terminal face.
What the price actually covers
The single biggest source of confusion in Anchorage glacier pricing is what the headline number includes.
Portage trips are priced per seat and the number you see is the number you pay. Matanuska trips are more varied: some are per-person rates on a shared van, others are private charters where the advertised per-person figure only applies once a minimum group size is met.
Two trips on this page carry minimums worth knowing before you click through:
Neither is a bad deal for the right party size. Both are misleading if you are travelling solo and reading the headline rate.
Transport is most of the day
For Matanuska and Knik trips, the drive is not incidental — it is four hours of the day, round trip. Every Matanuska trip listed here includes round-trip transport from Anchorage, which is the main thing separating a guided tour from the separately priced glacier access you would arrange yourself if you had a vehicle.
If you are renting a car anyway, self-driving to the Matanuska access road and joining a hike on site is cheaper. If you are on a cruise stopover or without a vehicle, the guided trips from Anchorage are the only practical option.
Season and daylight
Glacier trips from Anchorage run reliably from late May through mid-September. Portage cruises operate on a fixed schedule through the summer. Matanuska hikes run year-round with some operators, but winter trips are shorter, colder, and more weather-dependent.
Alaskan summer daylight means a full-day glacier trip does not eat your evening. In June and July you will still have hours of light after a tour that returns at 6pm.
What to bring
Operators supply the technical gear — crampons, helmets, trekking poles — on any trip that puts you on the ice. What they do not supply is the clothing. Expect the glacier surface to run 10 to 15 degrees colder than Anchorage, with wind. Waterproof boots, layers, gloves, and sunglasses are the standard list. Sunglasses matter more than people expect: glare off the ice is severe even under cloud.
Comparing the trips
The listings below cover every glacier trip currently bookable from Anchorage, with live pricing and availability from each operator. Filter by what you want the day to be: a boat ride to a glacier face, a walk on the ice, or a full backcountry push.
