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| Alaska Trip - Glacier Cruise |
| Tuesday, July 10, 2007 |
Day 0
The day after my birthday. Thanks to the party we had on my birthday every single soul in my team knew I was leaving to Alaska. It didnt help when a couple of them dropped by at noon to ask why I was still sitting in my cube, instead of being on a plane. This was when my manager was sitting right opposite me, and we were in the middle of getting some things done, before I left.
I took off work at around 1PM. DH also had been busy with a doctor appointment in the morning, so packing was done as fast as can be done. Usually for a 5 day trip I pick about 10 set of clothes, one set for incase it is cold, and another for incase it is too hot. By 2:00, we were out, all packed, set off to the Doctor's, the nurse looked at our hand and said we didnt have TB, and we postponed our vaccination for the next week and left hurriedly. Since our flight was from SFO and the traffic has always been unpredictable, mostly being slower, we wanted to make sure we got to the airport on time.
Surprise of surprises, there was not too much traffic, even at the Bay Bridge Toll. The East bound lanes were jam packed though, I had a good time pointing and laughing. We had a lot of time to spare at the airport, while having dinner of soup and hummus wrap, we were wondering why the airport was not crowded. It was about 7PM. It was me who came up with the theory that, at 7PM, no flight from SF can go anywhere, long distance. All the East bound flights from West either take off in the afternoon, or take off late night. All international flights take off in the middle of the night. Tcaah! Thats why the airport was not too crowded.
The flight was full, me and DH had seats in different rows, later we managed to be seated together. We were chasing the sun, it became darker outside and then there was light, it continued. As we landed in Anchorage, at about midnight, the sun had just set, and there was still the dusky sunlight. My first experience of the midnight sun! :--) We took a cab to the Hotel, the driver said this is just about as dark as it would get, wow!! We scrambled to our beds as fast as we could, and slept like angels.
Day 1
We picked up our rental car from the Airport, a Subaru Impresso, connected our GPS, and set off towards Whittier on Seward Highway. Seward Highway is one of the top scenic drives in the US, and it certainly lived up to its name. It was a two lane road, winding amidst the snow capped mountains of the Kenai Peninsula.
We crossed the Turnagain arm of Cook's Inlet, a water body between the Chugach Mountains. We were on a schedule and it was drizzling, so we didnt stop anywhere. We missed the left turn to Whittier, and had to drive a few miles before we could make a U-turn. We entered Portage, by now it was certainly chilly.
We stopped at a scenic spot, with a good view of the Portage Glacier. Our very first view of a glacier. A glacier is a large slow moving river of ice. It had a tinted blue color to it.
We were at the Whittier Tunnel by 9:05AM, a good 25 minutes before the tunnel openned at 9:30AM. Whittier Tunnel is the only way to get to Whittier. It opens for 15 mins every one hour for either directions. It is a tunnel built into one of the mountains, for either side traffic, and the train.
The tunnel length is 2.5 miles, one of the longest. It seemed unending as we drove at 25mph inside the tunnel. A big relief, as we saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Whittier was a small little town, the gateway to Prince William Sound. Here is a new definition of sound I learnt, Sound is a relatively narrow passage of water between larger bodies of water or between the mainland and an island.
We checked in for our cruise, at 11:00AM, went to a nearby cafe for coffee, and watched a short video of what we were going to see. I am tired of cruises, and boat rides now. My head felt funny the first few minutes and I wondered if booking the longer six hour cruise was a bad idea afterall. We went out to the deck, and I instantly felt much better.
The boat moved slowly, away from the dock, into the sound. Snow capped mountains surrounded us. I thought this trip must make me tired of mountains.
We had crab cakes and wild rice pilaf for lunch, they were yum. We had loads and loads of coffee, to make up for the cold everytime we were out.
We saw the glaciers from Harding Ice Field at a distance. We went through Esther Pass, and then a Salmon fish Hatchery. We saw loads of Salmon jumping out of the water. There were apparently millions of salmon at the hatchery. 
We saw a lot of bald eagles by the hatchery. At this point we werent experienced enough in wildlife viewing to know the importance of a pair of binoculars. We simply zoomed our camcorder to the eagles and video taped them. I caught some good pictures too. I am not sure what is the big deal about bald eagles anyway. I think they were an endangered species at some point.
Here is a classic reflection picture of Alaska.
We saw a bunch of sea otters as we neared the glaciers. I thought they looked cute. They seemed to just lie there in cold water, like a man sitting comfortably on an easy chair, rolling over once in a while. They were such a sight to watch. DH said he wanted to be a sea otter, solely for the carefree life they lead. He doesnt know they are an endangered species too, as they were hunted for their thick fur.
The first of the glaciers we saw was the Cox Glacier, we werent headed for it though. It started getting chilly as we closed down towards the glacier. We had to cover our ears and necks. I was so excited about seeing the glacier that I kept clicking away to glory. ;--)
Then we went through a small water channel, towards the Surprise Glacier. It looked magnificent. We realized how huge it was until we got closer and closer to it. There should be a sign which says glaciers are very much larger than they actually appear from far. :--)
The glacier was about half a mile wide, and it flowed almost 25 miles from the mountains into the sound. All these glaciers are tidewater glaciers.
We stood there and waited for some calving to occur. Calving is when a large or small chunk of ice spilts from the glacier and falls into the sea. We saw some small pieces of ice fall into the sea, but that was it. It was a bummer. Then we turned back, to watch three more glaciers, Barry, Cascade and Serpentine. There were a lot of water falls, all over,they looked beautiful.
By this time it got very cold to stay outside. :--( We clicked pictures and then ran back inside to the warmth of the cabins. One of the guides told us why the glaciers looked blue. Here is an explanation. Those lazy to click, it is because the shorter wavelengths, predominently blue, have more energy and hence easily escape the ice, while the other colors like red are absorbed.
It was time to return back. I slept for sometime on the cosy comfort of DH's shoulders.
We had free tickets to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. So we stopped by on our way back. This was just in case we never got to see the exotic tundra/arctic animals that Alaska is famous for. :--)
We saw Caribou, Moose, Reindeer, Muskox, Bison, and other animals. We saw a Brown Bear too. I felt sorry for the guy, because apparently he got lost before his Mom could teach him how to survive in the wild. :--( My heart went out to him. He was lying there on his own, swatting flies. The conservation center was pretty huge with lot of space for the animals, but still I guess it is not like actually roaming free in the wild.
 Finally we stopped at another baby bear. I had a fun time watching him dig deep. He looked soooo cute, I really wanted to cuddle him. No wonder they make teddy bears. ;--) There definitely is something about them bears.
By now DH was a bit tired with the travel, we thought we would retire for the day. It was past 8PM, normally I would have happily retired for the day, but since it was still bright and sunny, I was reluctant. ;--) The sun actually came out out of the clouds only past 5PM.
This was when I posted the previous post. I was so excited about the pictures. :--) |
posted by SK @ 1:20 AM  |
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| 2 Comments: |
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The pictures are awesome beautiful by the way :-)!
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The pictures are awesome beautiful by the way :-)!