Coastal Alaska: Seward, Homer and Whittier

Coastal Alaska

Our great experience in Valdez leaves us wanting more coastal adventure so we continue to the towns of Seward, Homer and Whittier. They are all located on the Kenai Peninsula southwest of Anchorage.

As we drove toward the coast we stopped along the way to marvel at the spectacular mountain scenery. It really is beauty overload.

Seward: 

Seward serves as the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park which is a hub for glaciers and marine wildlife.  The town itself has a lot to offer including Alaska SeaLife Center, Kenai Fjords National Park Visitor Center, hikes to glaciers, town murals, etc.

Over half of Kenai Fjords NP is capped with glacial ice, known as the Harding Icefield, which branches into 40 glaciers +/-. We were once again lucky enough to score boat tour tickets to visit just a small part of the Kenai Fjords. During the trip we enjoyed wildlife watching, sea lion colonies, Orca and Humpback whales and countless seabirds including the adorable puffins.

Orca Whales

A couple of the glaciers coming down from the Harding ice cap

More glacier sightings

Our boat got close to the face of Holgate Glacier to watch the ice calf

A window with an ocean view. 

The massive rock formations also housed sea lions for the day-look closely.

Puffins and Seagulls or could be Kittiwakes if they have black legs

While exploring more around Seward we hiked the Exit Glacier trail in the Kenai Fjords National Park. The receding of the glacier is evident by some trail signs indicating where the glacier once sat. Researchers say that the glacier has been receding over 160 feet every year over the last two decades. When you see and read about the glaciers you realize that these beautiful arts of nature will not be here forever. 

Exit Glacier

Homer:  

We traveled the Sterling Highway down the Kenai Peninsula to the south end to find Homer surrounded by the ocean and snow topped mountains. The views of Kachemak Bay are pretty great. Our goal was to camp on the 'Homer Spit', which is a 4.5 mile long gravel bar jutting into Kachemak Bay at the tip of the peninsula.  According to Wikipedia it is called the Spit because of its literal geological definition: a coastal landform created by wave action and longshore drift depositing sand and gravel in the water, originally left behind as a glacial moraine.  The Spit is loaded with shops, restaurants, hotels and RV campgrounds.  It doesn't seem that this little ribbon of a Spit would be big enough to accommodate all that is going on with ocean water just a few hundred feet apart.  We scored an RV site on the water front and even though it is cloudy we enjoy the smells and sights of the coast.  

View across Kachemak Bay

Our water front RV site

Viewing Homer and Homer Spit from Skyline Drive  

Grewingk Glacier viewed from Skyline Drive in Homer across Kackemak Bay

Anchor Point:

Anchor Point is about 20 miles northwest of Homer and is a scenic coastal community on the Kenai Peninsula.  We make the stop to take in some of the quieter beauty of the Cook Inlet, watch eagles and visit the area that is known to be the most westerly point on the North American highway system accessible by a continuous road. 

Numerous eagles were flying around in the area

Whittier:

We did not have Whittier on our list to visit but hearing about the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, town history and scenery we decided to make a day of it. We were excited to experience driving the longest vehicle-railroad shared tunnel in North America. The Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel is 2.5 miles long one-lane tunnel must be shared by cars and trains traveling in both directions. The unique tunnel design enables a single lane of traffic to travel directly over the railroad track.  This build saved tens of millions of dollars over the cost of constructing another tunnel or wider one.  

As we arrive at the entrance we took our place in line and waited for the train to transverse the tunnel and then it's our turn.  But our wait is not wasted as we viewed the surrounding scenery of... you got it, more snow capped mountains. Beautiful!

Our view as we wait to enter the tunnel

Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel entrance

Tunnel interior

The town of Whittier (Gateway to Prince William Sound) is small compared to the other port towns that we have visited.  It had an extensive military presence until 1960, which you still see the evidence of some of the buildings.  The two main structures in town was the 275,000 square foot Buckner Building completed in 1953 and the Begich Tower completed in 1957  by the United States Corp. of Engineers as part of a strategy to establish a military presence in Alaska, which housed troops, officers quarters, mess hall, theater and shooting range so troops didn't have to leave the buildings in the cold weather.  It was dubbed the 'City Under One Roof'. At the end of the Cold War, the base was scaled back in troop size and then  abandoned in the mid 60's, and both still stand today.  The abandoned Buckner building stands as an eerie monument to the past. The Begich continues on today as a 14 story building that houses over 90 % of all the Whittier residents and includes the post office, grocery store, church, medical center, police station and other municipal services called 'One Roof Life'.   

Purchased a snack from the Frisky Mermaid Cafe in Whittier. 
Yummy cinnamon roll with a great harbor view

Buckner Building as it stands today.

Whittier view

Begich building 

After 38 days on the road, 18 days in Alaska and 1,350 Alaskan miles we are really enjoying the mountainous glacier scenery around the coastal towns but we need to keep going because there is lot of Alaska to explore. Join us next time as we head North and inland for more Alaska adventure. Hint: a big mountain in Alaska slightly reveals itself to us.

Happy Travels

Alaska - The Last Frontier

 Many of you may have watched the TV show "Edge of Alaska" on the Discovery channel set in an remote area where living off grid was the way of life. Well we did and after watching the show we always said it would be neat to visit the little town of McCarthy, Alaska and explore the nearby Kennicott Mine and ghost town. So, we left pavement behind and drove the 62 mile remote stretch of the gravel McCarthy road to the end where the McCarthy footbridge awaits crossing the Kennecott River into town.  This road not only leads to McCarthy/Kennicott it is the only road that travels inside the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the largest national park in the United States, consisting of 13.2 million acres of scenic wilderness. We saw only a small portion of the Park.

Liberty Falls on the road to McCarthy

We saw many eagles in the area

This road originated in 1909 as a railway to support the Kennicott Copper Mines. When mining ended in 1938 the track was not needed and most of the rails were taken for scrap iron. As we drove the road we could see remnants of the railroad ties peaking out of the road bed and we have heard an occasional spike can show up but we didn't spot any.

Along our way we cross the Kuskulana Bridge (Mile 17). This bridge was a narrow, single-lane which was the former railroad bridge from 1910. As we crossed it, we looked down some 250 feet to see the canyon walls and the Kuskulana River. Built in the winter of 1910 at -50 degrees F, this 545 foot long steel bridge was pushed to be completed in only two months of construction.

Kuskuland Bridge

What made us stop in our 'tracks' was the old Gilahina Trestle at mile 29. The trestle was build after the completion of the Kuskulana bridge in January of 1911 with winter temperatures around -65 degrees F they used wood instead of steel because of problems found during the Kuskulana bridge of working steel in the extreme cold.  This curved wood trestle is 90 feet tall and 880 feet long and was completed in just eight days and a number of trestle sections are still standing after 115 years.  It was getting late in the day and we would not make it to the McCarthy footbridge until late so we elected to camp near the trestle. We were able to drive under a section of the trestle and found a great camping spot by the Gilahina River with the trestle view out our windows.   

Gilahina Trestle over Gilahina River

Gilahina Trestle

At the roads end... we cross the footbridge and grabbed a shuttle into town. It did not take long to walk through the entire town of McCarthy. It is fun to see the small town charm of history mixed with refurbished attractions like the hotel and bar.  From there we board our shuttle once again to the  Kennicott Mill / Mine town and Tour. 

McCarthy footbridge from parking area

Original old buildings of McCarthy

Refurbished Hotel. You can book a stay. 

Established in 1903 as a bustling copper mining camp but the ore ran out and the copper prices dropped, and by 1938 Kennicott was a ghost town. We were able to tour the inside of many of the existing buildings including the iconic red mill building and learn about how the mill worked. Kennicott is now a National Historic Landmark District and part of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.  This park contains nine of the sixteen highest peaks in the US (Mount St. Elias is #2), a third of the park is ice covered with the largest glacier and the longest tidewater (touches the ocean) glacier. Mt. Wrangell is the largest active volcano in North America. 

Kennicott Mill and other structures in town

Beyond the building you can see the Root glacier (under the dirt) which is covered with ground up rock powder call 'moraine' or 'till'. We saw old photos of the mine that showed the glacier taller than the buildings but it has melted back over the years but under the loose moraine/till dirt cover, there is still ice that is over a thousand feet deep.

Kennicott Mill - The tour started at the top and went down many flights of stairs and ladders until we reached the bottom.  Every level has a purpose during the milling process and used gravity for the ease of moving rock down through the mill.

As we make our way back to paved roads we have our sights on the coast.  Valdez to be exact.  But before we reach our destination we are amazed at the amount of waterfalls through the Keystone Canyon and glaciers within the mountain tops along the way. 

Just about a month ago we first experienced a couple of glaciers in Glacier NP and also the glacier in the Banff Icefields. Little did we know that those were just the beginning to our glacier experience. As we drive through Alaska we are granted with seeing a glacier and sometimes multiple glaciers within that day's travel. 

Worthington Glacier

Bridal Veil Falls - 600 ft waterfall - Tallest roadside
waterfall in the Alaska

Horsetail Falls - 300 ft cliff falls

Valdez was established in the late 1890's as a port of entry for gold seekers bound for the Klondike goldfields. Modern day Valdez is known for being the end port for the 800-mile-long oil pipeline that begins at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean.  As we arrived into town there was some clouds but we are still in awe of the surroundings mountains and the boat harbor setting. Smelling the salt water breeze and feeling the crisp snow capped- mountain wind we know we are at the coast. We are now at sea level elevation.

It was recommended to us to take a wildlife/ocean glacier boat cruise if possible. So in celebration of the 4th of July we signed up with Lu-Lu Belle Cruises and had a fun and relaxing time where we spent most of the day on the water (yes we took our Dramamine just in case).  Our experience included seeing Puffins, Humpback whales, Columbia Glacier, ice bergs, sea lions, sea otters and beautiful coastal mountains and coves. Two thumbs up on the cruise.

The LuLu Belle - our vessel for the day

Sea Lions

The cutest sea otters

Humpback Whale Tail

Humpback

A Humpback whales feeding on a school of small fish.

West arm of the Columbia Glacier

Iceberg Straight Ahead Captain ! 

After 27 days on the road, 8 days in Alaska and only 500 Alaskan miles we have only touched a small part of the Alaskan scenery and cultural. So join us next time for more play time in Alaska.

We will leave you with the Alaska term:  Sourdough

We noticed that the word sourdough is used a lot on business names, information boards and in discussions, etc.  It  is a term for someone who has lived in Alaska long enough to know how to survive its harsh winters and this term originates from the Klondike Gold Rush era.  In talking with Alaskans not everyone in Alaska is a 'sourdough' and there's no official documentation but you definitely have to earn the title sourdough.