A trip to Alaska is incomplete without a visit to beautiful Whittier. Lying beyond Maynard mountain, the only access road to Whittier by road is through a one way tunnel known to the locals as Whittier tunnel or the Portage tunnel.The official name is Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel. The tunnel is single lane and shares the lane with a railway track. Every 30 minutes the direction of traffic changes. The Alaska Railroad shares the tunnel too, its almost like they want the mystery of Whittier to be elusive.
Whittier is quintessential Alaska. glaciers, bays, wildlife and extreme weather. As soon as we crossed over into Whittier, the weather changed dramatically. There was intense fog, slight drizzle, and much colder temperatures, very much in contrast to Denali NP where it was scorching hot.
Our 4 hour
26 Glacier Cruise was to depart at 1pm. You could also go kayaking here but I preferred the warm confines of the ships cabin. They serve very good food that is very reasonably priced. Having driven from Denali starting at 4am, we reached Whittier at 11am. I was extremely tired and I think I had one of the most memorable naps of all time in the back seat of our extremely small Versa. After my 90 minute slumber, I was all set to go and brave the cold weather on a cruise ship.
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| Waiting for the tunnel to switch directions |
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| Inside the tunnel |
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| The Alaska Railroad |
Whittier has a total population of 127 people!! There are 2 big buildings in Whittier and that is where most of the residents stay. Apparently, the weather here is always foggy and mostly wet.The main draw here is the Prince William Sound area. A sound in geographical terms is a narrow and deep ocean inlet lying between two masses of land. The PWS sound are has seen its share of disaster with the Good Friday Earthquake and tsunami in 1964 and the Valdez oil spill in 1989. Yet, it seems like nature has found a way to fight back. The wildlife here is very shy unlike the wildlife in Seward.
Sea Otters usually disappear at the first hint of the humming of the cruise ships engines. We did not see any whales. We did see many glaciers, lots of shy sea otters and some bald eagles. The main draw of the cruise is to experience Blackstone Bay and to see the massive glaciers and hopefully to see some calving of the glaciers. The 4 hour cruise is the perfect length of time, not too long and not too short!
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| Sea Otter |
Sea Otters in Blackstone Bay are very shy. They usually disappear into the water, this one above stuck his head out just long enough.
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| Water fall from glacial melt, Northland Glacier PWS |
The waterfall above makes a roaring sound as you approach the glacier. The Northland Glacier is pictured below.
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| Northland Glacier, The water color is gray because of the concentration of minerals |
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| Panaroma of Blackstone Bay |
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| Another massive glacier, 500 feet high |
The bald eagles are in plenty in Blackstone bay. You can spot them by looking for a white patch in an otherwise green tree line. These pictures below were shot with a 50-500mm Sigma Lens with out a tripod.
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| Bald American Eagle |
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| Close up of a Bald American Eagle, 50-500 Sigma Lens shot without a tripod |
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| Kittyhawk Colony |
This colony of kitty hawks was over 1000 strong. They are really noisy
and go haywire when a bald eagle attacks the colony. I was able to
witness this madness as a Bald Eagle swooped down on the colony to
attack a nest. The bald eagle was chased away by the mother. It was
intense to watch the kitty hawk chasing the eagle, prey and predator had
reversed roles. Unfortunately, I was not prepared with a tripod to
capture that and all my pictures turned out blurry.
I hoped to post more photos of the sights we saw but we had a rainy day and my photos were spotty.
Next blog- Seward Wildlife Cruise
