Whittier-Anchorage
Arrived Whittier at 10:00am on a dry, overcast morning with temperature of 8C. Very scenic sailing up the channel with plenty of snow still on the mountain tops. Whittier is a city at the head of the Passage Canal about 58 miles (93 km) southeast of Anchorage. The city’s population was 272 at the 2020 census. Whittier has an extremely wet climate, receiving an average of 197 inches (5,000 mm) of precipitation per year. It is a port for the Alaska Marine Highway. Today was an excursion to Anchorage so we met at 11:15am and boarded bus #11 shortly after. We were the first riders on this brand new bus and it smelt like it! Our driver was Maurice and our guide was Scott. The weather turned out to be unusually dry with sunny periods and temperature rising to about 14C. The only way out of Whittier by road is through a long road/rail tunnel through the mountain. Driving from Whittier to Anchorage you’ll go through Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel—the longest (2.5 miles) highway tunnel in North America, and the first designed for -40 Fahrenheit temperatures and 150 mph winds! The one-lane tunnel must be shared by cars and trains traveling in both directions, and it usually needs to be aired out in between trips (with jet turbine ventilation, another first!). This unique design that enables a single lane of traffic to travel directly over the railroad track saved tens of millions of dollars over the cost of constructing a new tunnel. We followed the convoy though the tunnel starting at 10:00am and emerged on the very scenic 60 mile drive to Anchorage, which soon joined up with the Seward highway. The road followed along the side of Turnagain Arm, a waterway at the north end of Cook Inlet. Turnagain is characterized by remarkably large tides of up to 40 feet (12 meters) which are the largest tides in the United States. Very picturesque with the snow covered mountains. The low tide enabled us to see the extensive mud flats. Apparently there are plenty of moose in this area but we did not see any. Around 1:20pm we arrived in downtown Anchorage and were dropped off outside the museum. We were now allowed time to explore the city and museum. This is not the most picturesque city and downtown was rather run-down. We visited the shopping mall in the center of town which was pretty quiet. A cinnamon bun and coffee for lunch, then a little shopping before returning to the museum for a visit. Opened in 1968 the museum has permanent exhibits including an Alaska history gallery, Alaska art galleries, the Imaginarium Discovery Center science galleries and the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center, which features Alaska Native artifacts on long-term loan from the Smithsonian Institution. Spent over an hour wandering the different displays. Eventually returned to our waiting bus at 3:50pm for our return journey. On leaving Anchorage we took the route out past the airport and toured Lake Hood which is the world’s busiest seaplane base, handling an average of 190 flights per day. The drive back down Turnagain Arm was just as spectacular with the great weather. Arrived back at the tunnel for the 5:30pm convoy and then at the dockside shortly after.
