Just South of Anchorage is the Cook Inlet: Not a spectacular photo, much prettier in person.
Not far up Turn Again are Bird Point and Beluga point. I stopped at Beluga point and of course by the time I recovered from my shock and amazement of actually seeing a Beluga whale not 50 feet away..... this is all the picture I got. (they swim pretty dang fast) Some National Geographic photography I turned out to be. Really, it's a whale, I promise.
There are pictures of these showing dozens if not hundreds stranded on the mud flats (pic to follow). Beluga's are one of the only whales that can tolerate being "beached" for any length of time. They just lay around and wait for the tide to come back in.
A little scenery on the North side of the inlet.
Just another water feature idea for our new front yard. What do you think Kim?
Same stream, higher up. These are literally everywhere.
Some of the views just take your breath away. This one could be an oil painting in a museum. Now it's my desk top.
The next 5 or 6 pics are a panorama. Start of the mud flats.
When the tides change the water moves astoundingly fast. The incoming tide brings a "Bore" wave. A continuous wave from one side of the inlet to the other. Depending on the moon and the tide these Bore waves can be inches, or feet.
Cook Inlet is waaaaay in the back ground.
Last one in the panorama. This is a typical fall day here, (at least for me). 55 degrees.
Another view across the inlet.
Salmon anyone? These are 8 - 10 pounders. Chum Salmon. Not too high on the fisherman's list. This stream was maybe 10 feet across, in an area 30 feet long I counted around 50 fish. Nasty ugly, beat-up, but fun to catch I hear.
This is what distracted me on my way to Seward. (Named after the guy that originally proposed we buy Alaska from the Russians, "Sewards foley" but that's next week). As I drove down Alaska highway 1 I happened to look far to the west and noticed an odd bluish glow.
I pulled over and put the telephoto on the strange blue glow.... My first glacier!!! Alaska has like 40% of the glaciers in the world and I had no idea there were so many so close to Anchorage. The road to "Portage and Whittier" headed in that direction, and was there calling, so this day turned into a glacier hunt. I wondered just how close I could get. I was willing to hike a little if need be.
This is Byron Glacier. More on that later.
This is "Portage Lake", Portage Glacier (and several other glaciers as well) are near by.
Little closer up.
The little blue sliver in the middle just behind the spit of land is a glacier that you can reach by paying $25.00 for a tour boat (not my style) to get you there. (or you can hike about 12 miles....) Later on (after my side trip to Whittier, more later) I drove back around to the South side of Portage Lake and was able to get these from the dock. Portage Lake / Glacier is so called because during the gold rush the miners found the (easiest?) fastest route from Prince William Sound over the mountains was to use the glacier. They would take a tall ship into Prince William Sound and then "portage" their equipment and supplies from the sound over the glacier into the valley at the end of the glacier. The end of which in those days was right about where I'm standing to take this picture. That's about a mile or so away.
I recalled signs on my way in giving directions to the Byron Glacier trail head, another side trip? Heck yes, lets go!!!
This is what you can see of Byron Glacier near the parking lot at the trail head. The info sign says .8 miles, 100 ft. elevation change, piece of cake, sign the registration book please and don't forget a contact name and phone in case you don't come back. Seriously, they ck the book at the end of the day. Oh, also watch out for a Black Bear in the area, reported sitings and tent maulings within the last week. No pepper spray, no gun, no whistle... cool, lets go!!!
The .8 mi. +100 ft. elev. gets you here..., to the snow field at the foot of the glacier. If you look closely you can see one ignoramus doing something REALLY dumb and two more just like him about to do the same. The Black hole he is looking at is where all the glacial melt comes out. It's hard to see, but there is a LOT of water coming out of there and the hard packed snow has been falling off into the icy water. I half expected to see him jump up and down.....
The thing is, if you are really completely bent on actually TOUCHING the glacier you have to hike another .5 mile, mostly it's across very sharp shale scree, ice, frozen snow and UP. It may not look it, but the elev change from the toe of the snow field to the toe of the actual glacier is like 1500 ft.
So, did he, or didn't he????
Of course I did, what else could I do.....? You don't come to Alaska and drive all the way to Portage lake and NOT go touch the thing.
It took a couple of hours and a backtrack or two to get across the river which is on the OTHER side of the snow field just to get up here to the NEXT snow field just below the glacier. Crossing this frozen snow was a bit dicey, as in like every step I wished for a set of crampons and an ice axe. By the time I got here:
Up close and personal with Byron Glacier, I checked my heart rate, nifty 150, so either I got a good work out or I'm bad out of shape. Likely both. But I felt totally awesome! It wasn't until I got back that I realized my camera had been bumped into black and white mode. Picture Blue, deep glowing blue. I may have to go back and redo the pictures.... (not)
This crevice is typical of the snow field just below the glacier. Stay far away. This is telephoto, even so it gave me the creeps to look into it. It's about 8 feet across at the top and most likely 150 feet deep. Ice water at the bottom. Brrrrrr
Anywhere that the rock pokes through the ice melts all around it. The sun warms the rocks which melts the ice. Another twist on this is when a rock or boulder rolls down off the sides of the mountain (cliffs) and somehow manages to stop on the glacier. The sun heats up the rock which melts the ice and then it begins for form a bowl which gets deeper and wider and deeper and wider until the rock disappears out the bottom and into the river or waterfall under the glacier. Or so I speculate. An easy way down there would look like this: Again, picture cold & blue and scary.
Hard to tell, but this is solid Blue ice. A little further up for a side view.
There are some pretty interesting formations up there like this ice tunnel. So bummed that the color is out. It's beyond description.
This is the view from the side of Byron Glacier out across Portage lake. There is about as much lake to the Right behind the mountain as you see in this picture. There is about half this much again to the left behind the other mountain. To the farrrrr right of the lake is Portage glacier, to the farrr left is the visitors center. About a mile and a half between them. Just before Alaska became a State about Fifty years ago, Portage glacier stretched all the way to the visitors center. Whether you believe in Global warming or not it's a fact that these glaciers have receded a lot in the last 50 years alone.
The far side of the lower snow field is where the trail to Byron ends, or begins depending on whether you'll settle for dirty frozen snow or the opportunity to touch and TASTE a glacier. The melt water puddles up in little bowls fed by little trickles of melt water. The water at this elevation is perfectly clear, no glacier flour, just pure water, 31.001 degrees and the best thing I have ever tasted. Two drinks, warm hands in pockets, two drinks hands back in pockets.....
As glaciers do, Byron has carved a steep deep and rocky valley out of the mountain. There are hundreds of these streams on the sides of the cliffs.
They're fed by snow melt and rain. Some of them just disappear into the ground.
I hadn't noticed on the way in, but the trail is lined with these young trees. Birch I believe. They all had an odd curvey bend in them. Snow I suppose.
I got a little something out of sequence here. I had actually checked out Portage lake and glacier first and while at the boat dock I met this couple putting a kayak in the water (near that big chunk of blue ice in the lake) she told me about the one way tunnel to Whittier. It's on the far North East side of Portage lake. (anyone who has "cruised" to Alaska knows about this place) This used to be a train tunnel, but then they got the bright idea to use it for vehicles too. The problem was that its too narrow for two way traffic and too expensive to widen it. So they made it a one way road. The direction changes every half hour on the hour. You pay your $15.00 to $50.00 (depends on if your a car or a tractor trailer rig or something in between) then sit in a line and wait for the tunnel to open your direction. Pretty smart says I. Of all the people to meet, the young gal taking money recognized my sweatshirt and said "Hey, is that a BYU sweatshirt" yeps says I, (knowing what game was afoot) turns out she is on her way to LDS business college..... Those Mormons are everywhere these days. Anyway, this is the Portage side entrance to the tunnel.
This is of course the inside of the tunnel, which is about 2 or 3 miles and at the other end is:
Prince William Sound and the burgeoning metropolis of Whittier:
Which also happens to be where the cruise liners like to dock. The passengers take busses through the tunnel to all points on the other side of the mountain. There really isn't much to Whittier, just a bunch of tourist traps like this:
A small boat harbour. (OK they make one glaring exception...)
And this giant, crumbling rotting concrete building.
Before it was the lovely town of Whittier, there was a secret US Govt. base here built right after WWII. This building is abandoned, but there is another one similar, twice as tall, half as wide that has been renovated. They say that it houses 95% of the population of Whittier, includes the Post office, town hall, grocery store, movies, etc. etc. all in one building.
I knew these cruise ships were big, I just really had no idea how big. See that little teeny tiny black spot up in the far left end of the flying bridge? Thats a human.... This is the last ship of the season. Half the shops in whittier were already closed, the owners of the rest had this look that said, man, I wish theye'd pull anchor and get, I wanna close up and go home for the winter. They had a Silver Salmon derby here last week. Only two fish were caught. Worst season they've had in years. Most of the locals say due to poor summer weather and storms. Anyway, Whittier took about an hour or so to fully explore, then back through the tunnel to Portage Lake and THEN drove to the Byron Glacier adventure. But you've already heard that one. So after drinking water that was what, like 20,000 years old? It was time to head back to Anchorage. On the way driving past Potter marsh I spotted these.
Swans in ALASKA???? Go figure.
Next week (Sept. 27th. I'm behind almost a week) I try for Seward again, ( I make it this time) and much like Whittier it's not the end of the road, but all the stuff between here and there that make the day, such as a dead beaver twice, dejavu, another amazing day. (Actually, if you look at a map you'll see that Seward IS the end of the road....)
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