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The flights from Detroit to Anchorage via Minneapolis were uneventful, arriving in the evening. The first real day of our vacation was July 20, starting in Anchorage.
The object of the first day was to drive the Seward Highway. It starts in Anchorage and follows the shore of the Turnagain Arm, surrounded by the Chugach Mountains.
This picture shows a view of the arm and surrounding mountains.
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We stopped in Portage Valley and hiked to Byron Glacier. There is a bigger glacier there, Portage Glacier, but you can't see it from the road or by hiking. You have to take
a boat ride to see it, and we didn't have time
today, so we went back to the continued around the head of the Turnagain Arm. The highway then leaves the shore and goes through the mountains to Seward, which is at the head of Discovery Bay, a Fjord
on the Gulf of Alaska (Pacific Ocean). Juat outside Seward there is another glacier, Exit Glacier, which is one of only three glaciers in Alaska easily accessible from the road (a "drive-up" glacier).
Steffi took this picure of Steve in front of a small portion of the glacier, showing nevertheless a massive amount of ice. You don't need to walk very far from the parking lot to
get this shot.
We love the blue appearance that the ice has in the crevasses.
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The next day, July 21, we had scheduled a tour of the Kenai Fjords National Park, which extends along the coastline of the Kenai Peninsula.
We went in a small boat operated from the Seward small boat harbor by Kenai Fjords Tours as the "Captain's Choice" tour. The weather was gray,
threatening to rain or drizzle, but the tour almost always goes on, despite the weather. The boat carries about 20 people, and most of us on board wanted to see wildlife or birds. One lady
had been to Alaska eight times, and had seen every bird but three seabirds, so when Joe, the captain, asked what we wanted to see, she announced her three missing birds.
He said all three were out there and he would do his best to find them.
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Meanwhile we had a pretty low ceiling of clouds, but we could see some of the glaciers as we went out of the Fjord toward the Chiswell Islands (a haven for sea birds).
A pair of humpback whales followed us for a while, and I got this picture of them surfacing, and blowing.
The tour is an all day tour, so Besides the Chiswell Islands, where we saw many birds (including two of the three missing birds, photos to appear later), we also had time to go around Aialik Peninsula and into Aialik Fjord. We stopped the boat as close as we could to the face of Aialik Glacier. This glacier is a tidewater glacier, so it calves directly into the sea. It is three quarters of a mile across and is very active, as the water around the boat was filled with chunks of
ice of various sizes. Once the captain turned off the engine, all you could hear was the glacier, which never stopped cracking, creaking, groaning, and dropping ice with a splash.
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July 22: After a great day of touring the Kenai Fjords, we were ready to drive down the Kenai Peninsula to Homer. There is no way to go along the coast except by boat, as we had
just done. One must drive the Seward Highway back partway through the mountains and take the Sterling Highway, which goes to the shore of the Cook Inlet and follows the inner coast of the
peninsula southwest to Homer. Steffi wanted to see a moose, a brown bear, and other wildlife. It's not that hard to find such animals in this part of Alaska. Our first moose sighting came entirely
too quickly and unexpectedly, however. Along the Sterling Highway, while Steve was trying to find a way to let a tailgater go past, a cow moose jumped onto the highway directly ahead of us. This in
an unbelievably scary thing to happen. For one thing, they are enormous. We were amazed at how agile they were at jumping from completely out of sight along and below the roadbed
directly up into a lane of traffic. My image of a moose had been that of an animal placidly chewing greenery off the bottom of a lake, while standing in it and not moving. Needless to say,
I have a different image now. At 60 mph, there isn't much you can do. Fortunately we swerved around it, and the tailgater must have gotten quite a surprise.
Needless to say, we did not get a picture of that moose. Fortunately, it was not the only one we saw on this vacation.
Once out of the mountains, the Sterling Highway travels through country that is not particulary scenic, although it attracts a great crowd of fishermen. With the salmon running in
all the streams, and stories of record King Salmon caught near the town of Soldotna weighing upwards of 100 pounds, there were many of these fisherman lined up in "combat fishing"
formation, about a yard apart, all casting into the same water. Not being fishermen, we chuckled at this and drove on. The great scenery returns when you
get to Homer. It is located on Kachemak Bay, and the beautiful mountains of the Chugach Coastal Range are right across the bay. We stayed at a B&B high on the hill above Homer and
had a great view from our room of the mountains across the bay, including the Grewingk Glacier.
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July 23: After that picture we took of Grewingk Glacier across the bay, the weather socked in with drizzle and fog, and we never got another view of it fro the B&B.
We wanted to go across the bay and hike up to the lake that the glacier terminates into. However, all we could see is fog this morning. We went into town to check on
our options, and as we did, we drove out of the cloud that had been obscuring our view. So, although we had a low celing, we could nevertheless arrange for a
water taxi drop-off and pick-up, so we could do our hike.
This picture of Grewingk Glacier was taken just before we reached the lake. The lake was full of chunks of ice of various sizes and shapes (pictures coming). After the lake,
we had to hike a different route back, because our water taxi pick-up was at Halibut Cove. This requires hiking through woods across a saddle and down to the landing. On the way across, we
saw a black bear in the woods near the saddle. It was off the path and not bothering us, thankfully.
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July 24: Today we left Homer and drove north to Kenai, near Soldotna, so that we could be near the floatplane operator with whom we had arranged passage to Katmai National Park.
Alaska West Air flies floatplanes out of Island Lake north of Kenai. We stayed in one of their lake cabins. After driving from Homer, we still had the better part of a day to spend, but the weather
continued to be uncooperative. We stopped in at the visitor center in Kenai, and were fortunate to run into a volunteer who knew a lot about birds that could be found in the area.
In particular, he knew that there was an eagle nest in a tree adjacent to the city's boat launch overflow parking lot, and so we followed his directions and found it with no trouble.
In this picture of the nest, there are two chicks. The big one is standing on teh edge of the nest looking out in our direction, so it is easy to see. There is a smaller one in the nest,
peeking out behind his left leg (on the right side of the picture). The parents are nowhere to be found. Presumably they are off hunting for food for these two.
Tomorrow was supposed to be the big day for our flight to Katmai, but the weather was not good, and we knew that they would not fly unless they could cross the
Alaska Range with adequate visibility. They told us that the weather had been so bad that they had not been able to fly to Katmai in a week, but the forecast was for
better weather tomorrow, so the decision would be made in the morning. All we could do is cross our fingers.
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July 25: The weather broke, and the plane was going to fly! Katmai National Park is on the Alaska Peninsula, west of us and north of the Aleutian Range. Within the park is the volcano
Mt. Novarupta, which erupted in 1912, one of the two largest volcano eruptions of the twentieth century. But the reason we wanted to go there is to view the coastal brown bear.
They congregate during the salmon run at Brooks Falls, near Brooks Camp. The only practical way for us to visit is by floatplane.
The trip from Kenai takes two hours and consists of flying west
across the Cook Inlet and then over the rugged Chigmit Mountains of the Aleutian Range. There are a number of volcanoes in this range, and some are active.
In its own right the flight is a marvelous flightseeing experience. The pictures we took from the floatplane had to be taken through the plexiglass window,
so the quality suffers a bit, but the subject matter is so spectacular, that we took quite a few, including this picture of Mt. Iliamna,
which appears to be actively erupting, although we are assured that the image is just showing gasses from a fumarole field near the summit of the mountain.
Unlike nearby Mt. Redoubt, which last erupted in 1989, Mt. Iliamna has not erupted in modern history.
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Upon landing in Naknek Lake, we attend an indoctrination lecture, in which it was explained that the bears have right-of-way throughout the park,
and if a bear is within 50 yards of the bridge, then the bridge is closed
until the bear moves away. You must cross the bridge to reach the bear observatory. We had to wait over 20 minutes for a bear to move before we could continue and cross the bridge. Once on
the other side, we had to give way to family groups of bears using the trail. Eventually, we were able to reach the bear observatory. In the hour we were allotted to use
the bear observatory, we saw quite a bit of different bear behavior. This picture shows a large male brown bear standing at the top of Brooks Falls, waiting for a salmon to try to jump the falls,
and perhaps provide him with his next snack.
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July 26: We left the Kenai Peninsula by returning up the Sterling and Seward highways as far as the Portage Valley, and then driving through the Chugach Mountains via the Whittier
tunnel to Whittier, located on Prince William Sound. From here we had arranged to take a tour of the fjords and glaciers of the northwestern portion of the sound, especially
College Fjord. Again, the weather was poor, but this time it really did affect our plans. At the entrance to College Fjord, the captain was faced with a solid fog bank. There was no point in
entering it as there would be nothing to see, so we explored the Harriman Arm more deeply instead. We did see some good glaciers, but our best photo of the day is this picture of a
number of sea otters. They have a tendency to "raft up" into groups here, floating on their backs, as otters generally do.
If you look carefully at the surface of the water, you can see that it was raining pretty hard at this point.
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July 27: We spent the night in Whittier, because we needed to cross the sound on the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry to reach Cordova, but the ferry did not depart until late in the afternoon,
so we took advantage of the slightly improved weather to take a hike up to Portage Pass. From here, we could look back into the Portage Valley. More importantly, from this vantage point
we could look across Portage lake and get a great view of Portage Glacier, which we had been unable to see before. In this picture you can also see the little dot in the lake,
which is the sightseeing boat that we did not have time to take back on July 20. It's a pretty good sized boat, but it is certainly dwarfed by the impressive Portage Glacier.
We were happy to have such a great view of the whole scene from up here.
After this hike we went back to Whittier and boarded the ferry across the sound to Cordova.
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July 28: Today started as another gray, drizzly day. We came to Cordova so that we could explore the Copper River Delta. To get here, air and ferry are the only options.
There is a road, the Copper River Highway, which follows the route of the copper mining railway of the early 20th century. It starts in Cordova and goes past the
airport, then becomes a gravel road and crosses the expansive delta, hopping from island to island on a serious of modern highway bridges.
The Copper River Delta is a huge wetland area, and so it is a great place to view wildlife. The biggest attraction for us, though, was the Childs Glacier, which calves directly into the
Copper River upstream from the delta, near the end of the highway, within sight of the Million Dollar Bridge. What makes the Childs Glacier so special is that the river flows past its face,
undercutting it, causing it to calve very actively. There is an observation deck across the river from the glacier, so you can stay there as long as you like and watch the
glacier and river do their thing. This is better than a drive-up glacier, because it has a huge headwall of ice, and it is better than a tidewater glacier because you don't have to leave
when the captain decides it is time to movve the boat.
The picture shows the Childs Glacier from the Million Dollar Bridge, which is a bit farther away than where we did most of our glacier watching.
At the end of the day, we drove back to Cordova and ate dinner. We had Copper River Salmon, caught in the river that day. It doesn't get any better than that.
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July 29: But wait - it actually does get better. Today the weather was substantially better. We decided to back to the delta and take a hike to see some other glacier.
After hiking for a few hours to see the Saddlebag Glacier, which was a nice hike, but a small glacier, we decided that we wanted to go back and view the Childs Glacier again.
We had only expected to do this once, but today the sun was shining, and it seemed to good to miss. We were not sorry. With the sun shining on the face of the glacier, the clving was even
more frequent than yesterday. I snapped a series of photographs when a large section of the face of the glacier broke off and converted it to an animation. Click on the photo to see this.
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July 30: We start the day with a morning transfer by ferry to Valdez, in the northeastern portion of Prince William Sound. From here we plan to drive the Richardson Highway,
but not today. Today we arranged to go on an excursion with an outfitter that teaches beginners how to use crampons to hike on a glacier. We had a full van, thanks to the presence of a
cruise ship in port for the day. Steffi and I were the only two on the glacier hike that did not come from the cruise ship. The van took us up through the Thompson Pass to
Worthington Glacier, another drive-up glacier. We put on our crampons and began climbing. The toe of the glacier has a very steep upper surface, but the crampons made it
possible for us to hike up the surface of the glacier until we reached a point where there were some large crevasses, one of which was a deep hole that our guide
referred to as the "blue hole of doom". All we could do there was look into it, but some of the other crevasses opened horizontally, so that one could actually walk into them (part way).
The picture shows Steffi and several others in our group coming back out of one of these crevasses.
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July 31: Today weleft Valdez and drove the Richardson Highway through the Keystone Canyon and over Thompson Pass, bound for the interior. Again we had a gray, drizzly day. It rained on and off as
we drove the 7-hour route to Fairbanks. Our B&B was really special today. We signed up to stay at the Aurora Express on Chena Ridge, just west of Fairbanks. This B&B
is made up of restored Alaska Railroad cars, including a dining car, sleeper, and various other private passenger cars. There was also a tank car and a caboose. We stayed in the caboose.
The locomotive has been gutted inside, but is as picturesque as ever anyway. Steve poses on the locomotive for this picture. Steffi really liked the yellow and blue colors of the
Alaska Railroad. It reminded us of home in Ann Arbor.
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Aug 1: When we awoke, I went up into the cupola of the caboose to see what I could see. It was so foggy that you couldn't see beyond the nearby trees. We only needed a short two-hour drive today,
to get to Healy, near Denali National Park and Preserve. Tomorrow we had a reservation to go into the park on a shuttle bus, which is really the only way to get into the park. For the first
hour of the drive we had very little visibililty due to the fog. Then it lifted, and for the second hour, we had a pretty nice day. We weren't sure what we were going to do with
the rest of our day. It turned out that the best thing to do was to go down to the park entrance. There are hiking trails, and you can drive your car up to 15 miles,
as far as the Savage River Bridge. We found various wildlife along the road, but the best picture we got was of this caribou, grazing near the road. After I took this picture,
the animal stopped eating, and came quickly down to the road, and then trotted up the road past the astonished tourists who had stopped all along the road to see what we were looking at.
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Aug 2: Our trip through Denali National Park and Preserve started with the 5:30 AM departure of our shuttle bus. The reasons for such an early start are that it is a very long trip and there is
a better chance of seeing wildlife when you leave early. The big unknown was the weather. I think everyone who takes this trip hopes to be able to view Mt. Mckinley, yet the chances are never very
good. There was some overcast that morning, so we did not have high expectations. Our hope was that the weather might change.
We had early luck with wildlife. Ever since the moose stepped out on the Sterling Highway back on July 22, we had not seen one we could take a good picture of. Then someon on the bus
saw this bull moose in the brush. The bus stopped so we could all photograph it. Only his upper portion was visible, but this is the big moose rack that we wanted to photograph.
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Someone on the bus asked the driver whether we had any chance to see the mountain today. He looked at the clouds and decided that the odds were against it. Against these odds,
the clouds moved away over the next few hours and by the time we reached the Eielson Visitors Center, 35 miles from the mountain, some of the clouds obscuring it parted, and we
got a great view.
We knew we were incredibly lucky to get this view, and didn't hesitate to take pictures. This was smart, because within 20 minutes,
while we continued on to Wonder Lake with the hope of getting a better
view from just a little closer, the clouds came back and we never saw the mountain again.
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On the return trip we continued to see a wide variety of wildlife, and the bus always stopped at such sightings so that we could get photographs.
Here is a photo of a grizzly bear with a cub. These are the same bears genetically as the brown bears that we saw at Katmai, but without the diet of Salmon, the grizzly bears
here in the interior don't get to be nearly as large as the coastal brown bears, and they have a different appearance.
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This red fox is not the first one we saw on the bus trip, but it is the one that allowed us to get the best picture.
This is the last picture from our bus ride through the park.
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Aug 3: The first half of the day was dedicated to driving back to Anchorage, and the remainder was spent taking a walking tour of Anchorage. Just as we were getting started
on the drive down, we found an adult moose cow eating brush right off the highway.
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There was a -3 foot low tide that evening, and after consulting the tide charts, we realized that we had time to go out to Bird Point along the Turnagain Arm and watch the bore tide.
What is a bore tide? A natural phenomenon where after a particularly low tide, the incoming tide is amplified and focused by the topography,
resulting in a single wave, which can be as high as 6 feet, and which rolls
up the Turnagain Arm at about 10 miles per hour. The stronger the low tide, the greater size of the bore tide wave. People have reported that Beluga Whales sometimes enter the arm
with a strong bore tide.
We didn't see any Belugas, but we did get a pretty good view of the bore tide. This picture shows it crashing along the rock-reinforced shore of the arm. It was less than 6 feet in height,
probably about 4, but it was still impressive and very unusual.
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On the way back from watching the tide roll in, we saw Dalls Sheep high on the rocks above the highway.
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Aug 4: We wanted to hike up to Flat Top Mountain, a popular hike in Anchorage, but the clouds were too low, and we would be hiking in the clouds and miss the views.
The vacation was winding down anyway, so we opted for a drive. We drove east on the Glenn Highway up into the mountains as far as Matanuska Glacier, and returned via Hatcher Pass.
This picture is of the Independence Gold Mine, which is an abandoned mine near the pass.
Aug 5: Our final day and flight home, with no notable pictures, mostly due to continuing poor weather. The weather for the entire vacation was overall very cold and
rainy, but we were so lucky to get a break most of the times that we needed it, that it is hard to complain. Even the Alaskans thought the weather was colder and rainier
than usual, but we had a marvelous vacation anyway.
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