Alaska Part 5

Another major highlight for Christin and I during our Alaska trip was our glacier cruise. This cruise was in the famous body of water called Prince William Sound. We embarked from the port town of Whittier, which is not far from Anchorage, and can be located on the left of this map. The tour was with Philip's 26 Glacier Tour; so named because you get to see, you guessed it, 26 glaciers. On their home page you can see the cool boat we rode on which was designed specifically for that cruise. It was a completely smooth ride and you literally never felt a wave, consequently I can without reservation recommend this cruise to anyone. Not only was there no issue with sea sickness but the sights were truly spectacular.

Along with glaciers, there are lots of species of animals that live in Prince William Sound. We saw lots of sea otters which like to stick together and float out in the middle of the water. Here's your trivia for the day: a group of sea otters is called a raft. I bet we saw close to 200 sea otters during our excursion. There were also Harbor Seals, although from our vantage point these just appeared as gray bananas laying on floating ice. I thought the coolest animal we saw were the mountain goats, however these were nothing but white specks traversing mountains alongside the glaciers. We briefly glimpsed a few porpoises but that was not too spectacular and there were lots of birds including Bald Eagles. I would have loved to see some Killer Whales or some Humpbacks but there were none.

The weather while cruising was noteworthy. As you can see by some of the pictures, there was lots of ice floating around in the water. I can see why this ice wasn't melted by now! We were there at the beginning of June and there was no way the wind chill got out of the 30s. When the boat would pull up beside a glacier, everyone would get out of the cabin onto the decks to get a better view. Well the view was nice but most people ran back inside quickly. It was seriously cold.

The glaciers were actually pretty neat for being just huge pieces of ice. Before this cruise I wasn't really sure what the fuss was about but they are pretty impressive. They have a beautiful turquoise color to them which I could explain why, but it's really boring. The glaciers that are touching the water also do something quite impressive. Giant pieces the size of skyscrapers break off (called 'calving') and splash into the water. None of the glaciers wanted to cooperate for our group but they were still beautiful to look at.

The only significant bummer of the trip was the fact that one of the 2 engines died on the return trip. This delayed our arrival by 2 hours which for us was no big deal since we had our own car. However a lot of our fellow passengers were also passengers on large cruise ships traveling up and down the Alaska coast and they were a little more anxious.

One interesting aspect of the town of Whittier involves the method for getting there. There is only one road that services Whittier and it goes through a 2.5 mile long tunnel right before you enter the city. Another trivia for you: the tunnel is called the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel and is the longest highway tunnel in North America. This tunnel is like no other. It is a one way tunnel that is open to both cars and the train! They rotate on the half hours which direction is open for cars to drive through and the whole tunnel shuts down when the train comes through. While driving through the tunnel, you are actually driving on top of train tracks that are sunk into the concrete. That was by far the most intriguing tunnel I have ever been in.

Well I think that about covers our glacier cruise. If you are in Alaska I would recommend highly. Stay tuned, there are 5 more parts to this Alaska blog!