The Yakutat Journals, Chapter Three

Here’s the thing you should know about Whittier: IT ALWAYS RAINS IN WHITTIER.

Always. So, if you should pass through that two and a half mile long tunnel and not get hit by a train and all of a sudden find a strange glare on your windshield that makes you put on sunglasses even late in the evening, well, you’re in another dimension. You certainly aren’t in Whittier.

Entrance to the tunnel. Note the railroad tracks.

I could give you a whole bunch of totally fascinating information about that tunnel, and how it’s ever-so-unique in the world, but you can read that for yourself (http://www.dot.state.ak.us/creg/whittiertunnel/tundesign.shtm), otherwise, I might never get to the scary bear stories.

Suffice it to say the tunnel is a single lane wide and is shared with the railroad. The tracks are cemented in and you drive on the cement pads. And sometimes the tracks so there’s a lot of moving around and back and forth an trying not to collide with the rock walls. There’s a whole big control room with scads of computers that theoretically control the flow of automobiles, trucks, busses, and trains coming and going, so that the twain shall never meet…. But you know about computers, right?

Sorry about the fuzzy picture inside the tunnel. You are NOT allowed to stop and the ride isn't exactly smooth.

Anyway, we made it through the tunnel and emerged in that other dimension where the sun was shining. I’ll call it Whittier for simplicity’s sake, but we both know it always rains in Whittier, right?

JJ and I wandered around, had a bite to eat, and wondered what dimension we were in because the sun was shining and it was warm and the wind wasn’t screeching through like it was playing pick-up-sticks with the freight connexes stacked all over, while waiting our turn at loading onto the ferry Kennicott. I say “loading” because JJ was taking her truck, which is a good thing because it would have taken us a half dozen trips each to load all our supplies and gear if we had to walk on.

Whittier has an interesting history, most of having to do with it being an ice-free port during WWII. Today fewer than three hundred people live there year ‘round, mostly supporting the state ferry system, the railroad, local businesses, and the tourism industry. Huge cruise ships dock there, freight pours into Alaska through Whittier, and tourists flock to Whittier to go on the many daily tours through Prince William Sound.

The state ferry Kennicott in Whittier. Note the Alaskan flag painted on the stack.

And most of the locals live in one big building.

Here’s a photo of the ferry’s stern where the vehicles are being loaded. This was an easy one. You simply drive down a ramp, turn around where the ferry guys tell you and back up in line with the other vehicles. Just wait until we get to Yakutat and you see how we get off!

Then while you piddle around trying to get the gear you need for the next twenty-four hours (you aren’t allowed access to the car deck once the ferry is under way), the guys get the vehicle strapped down at four points. We are going across the Gulf of Alaska, after all, and one wouldn’t want all those vehicles rolling around like they’re in a pinball machine.

Lugging all your necessary stuff, you go up two decks to the purser to claim the key to the “roomette, outside” that you’d reserved for $52.00. For an extra three bucks you get a pillow, sheets, a blanket, and towels. You smile sweetly and look lost, and a steward not only shows you to your room, but carries your linens for you. ( Have I ever told you I do so love my gray hair?)

Ah, so here’s my “roomette, outside.” And that’s pretty much it. A room with two bunks, porthole, facilities down the hall. Just enough depth for the door to swing closed. Or, is it a passageway on a boat?

I am in this roomette by myself, so I make up the bottom bunk, just like in a motor home. Two rooms away, JJ is doing the same.

Be the way, they also have “roomettes, inside” which means no porthole, and are cheaper, but that sounded an awful lot like sleeping in a closet. There are also much bigger rooms, including some with bathrooms. There aren’t enough rooms for all the passengers, so in another chapter I’ll show you what the roomless do.

I spread out the Big Agnes sleeping bag (petite, extra width in the hips because I sleep with one leg drawn up), locate the Kindle, and my stateroom is ready.

I check out the shower room, and it’s sparkling clean. The last time I was on one of these state ferries, the showers were coin operated. Now, they’re free to everyone on the boat.

I walked out on deck and took some photos of Whittier.

All those green things stacked up the the railroad yard are shipping containers--connexes.

Then at 11 p.m., the scheduled time, the Kennicott pushed itself away from the dock and sailed into Prince William Sound…as a soft rain started to fall.

As I said before, it always rains in Whittier.

Leaving Whittier at 11 p.m.

The Yakutat Journals, Chapter Two

(Note: Don't forget. You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.)

CHAPTER TWO:

Driving through History

Sometimes history just jumps up and whomps you in the face when you take off on a trip. That’s what it did to me when JJ picked me up and we headed to Whittier to catch the ferry to Yakutat.

At the end of my driveway, we pulled onto the two-lane road called the Seward Highway, named after William H. Seward, Secretary of State during the Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson presidencies. Seward arranged the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, almost 600,000 square miles for 2.3 cents an acre.

Along Turnagain Arm

I’ve walked every inch of the first thirty miles of the fifty to Whittier. That’s my litter-picking area, through the former gold fields of the Kenai Peninsula, now part of the vast Chugach National Forest. After the rest areas in Turnagain Pass at the thousand foot elevation, a long winding seven mile descent took us to the northern terminus of the Kenai Peninsula and the saltwater of Turnagain Arm, a branch of Cook Inlet.

Near Silvertip on the Seward Highway.

The inlet is named after Capt. James Cook, the renowned English explorer who met his death at the hands of Hawaiian warriors at Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island of Hawaii. Cook “discovered” the inlet and its twin arms of Knik and Turnagain earlier in that voyage as he searched for the fabled Northwest Passage.

A small herd of bison at the Alaska Conservation project, Portage.

Two other British explorers who sailed with Cook have ties to Cook Inlet and Turnagain Arm. They were Captains George Vancouver (who named the inlet after Cook) and William Bligh, he of HMS Bounty notoriety. Bligh, frustrated after a small exploratory sailing into Knik Arm failed to reveal the Northwest Passage, and another into the southernmost arm also returned with bad news, named the second arm “Turn Again,” today called Turnagain Arm. Alaska’s population is hovering around 700,000, and the majority live in the Cook Inlet watershed.

Near Portage valley along the Seward Highway.

The highway loops around the end of the arm and heads for Anchorage. At one point around that loop is a turnoff onto the Portage Glacier Highway, which we took. This road travels through Portage Valley, hemmed on three sides by mountains and hanging glaciers and streams. Just before the road runs into a mountain, there is the number one tourist attraction in the greater Anchorage area: Portage Glacier and the Begich,Boggs Visitors Center.

Begich, Boggs Visitors Center at Portage Glacier.

Again with the history. In 1972 Alaska’s lone U.S. Congressman, Nick Begich, was running for re-election. Joining him here for a fundraising junket was House Majority Leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana. With pilot Don Jonz at the controls of a single engine Cessna 310, Begich and Boggs, along with Begich’s aide, took off from Anchorage on Oct. 16, 1972, headed up Turnagain Arm towards Portage Pass.

I was living in Girdwood, a small ski town located 35 miles from Anchorage the arm. On that day, at roughly the same time, I left Girdwood driving towards Anchorage in rain, fog, and screaming winds. I considered turning back. The sound of a loud plane caught my attention and I noticed a small craft heading into the snarling storm. I wondered who was crazy enough to fly in such awful conditions.

The plane and its occupants were never seen again. The largest search in U.S. history, combining forty military and twenty civilian aircraft of every type from spy planes and helicopters, and continuing for thirty-nine days, failed to turn up any evidence of a crash. I may have been one of the last people to see that plane before it headed into the malicious winds of Portage Pass.

Ironically, shortly after the plane disappeared, a well-known flying magazine circulated its latest issue containing a story written by pilot Don Jonz. It’s subject? How to fly 365 days a year in Alaska.

Winds in the Portage area have demolished instruments placed to measure their speed, exceeding 130 miles per hour.

At Portage lake, a glacial fed body of water that frequently sports ice calved from the face of Portage and other nearby glaciers, is the Begich, Boggs Visitors Center. JJ and I stopped alongside the lake and took photos of the dense blue ice floating in the lake.

Portage Glacier lake and calved ice.

Dense blue ice from Portage glacier.

I looked at the glacier now so far away. During my time In Girdwood, I once flew in a small ski-equipped plane to land on the glacier with a group of friends. Only after the plane took off and left us high on a snow-covered mass of ice did we discover how horrid the skiing conditions were. Imagine trying to ski through wet concrete.

Glacier through a 200 mm zoom lens. My ski trip started up around the corner to the right, came down the glacier onto lake ice.

We eventually made our way down by skiing in a switchback manner, poling our way through heavy, wet snow and falling often. Finally we reached the frozen lake below the face of Portage glacier, and slogged the two and a half or three miles back to our vehicles. Today, Portage glacier has receded so far you can barely see it.

The short tunnel to Bear Valley.

We left the lake and got back on the highway, drove through a short tunnel into Bear Valley and arrived at the Whittier Tunnel staging area.

Whittier tunnel staging area. Note the red traffic lights at right side of picture.

It’s a shared tunnel—motor vehicles and trains. And it’s only a single lane wide. All we had to do was pay our $12, get in line and wait for the green light.

And hope a train wasn't coming from the other direction.

Let the adventure begin.

(to be continued)