Alaska: Our trip during July, 2013 - Final Part V

Thursday, the 18^th July:

Talkeetna is basically a mountaineering town and was built by miners, prospectors, adventurers, and the railroad. It is at the junction of three rivers, the Talkeetna, Susitna, and Chulitna. The word ‘Talkeetna’ means ‘where the rivers join,’ in the local Athabascan language. Talkeetna is also a great place for flight-seeing trip around Denali. One can find any number of water-planes parked in the waters of innumerable lakes around the place.

At Talkeetna, Viji had booked a cabin house very close to the river. It was quite late at night when we reached there. The cabin house was located quite interior, ten miles away from the main Anchorage-Denali highway. The road to the cabin house was deserted. Without our GPS, we couldn’t have located the cabin house. Cell phones went dead. The place, initially, looked haunted and scared all of us.

 

There was a small board “Welcome to Neelakantan family’ in front of the cabin house and that was the only pleasant surprise. Here too, mosquitoes flew around freely everywhere. We quickly rushed inside the house, not only to escape from the mosquitoes, but also for fear of any bear suddenly emerging from the nearby woods. ‘I will get out of this place, first thing in the morning,’ was the terse pronouncement from Viji. All her earlier enthusiasm to stay in a cabin house vanished quite dramatically. After making sure that the front door was securely locked, we all went to sleep immediately.
Honestly, to be fair, the cabin house was really a great accommodation, as we discovered the next morning. It was neat, fully furnished, well equipped with a fridge, micro-wave, kitchen-range, dish-washer, utensils for cooking and so on. It offered plenty of open space to play or party around and a quiet stay away from the din and noise of towns.  Knowing that we could be arriving with our children late at night, the caretaker lady had left some milk and other ingredients for making coffee or tea. But, we were all so tired the previous night after a long drive and scared about the deserted location of the cabin-house that we had no enthusiasm to notice the nicer things about this place.

 

 

 

In the early morning, there were a few more surprises, though not pleasant.  Electric power went off and so, there was no water in the taps in the bathroom. We quickly prepared to leave, but before leaving we went to the caretaker’s place. We found some wonderful breakfast – some special bread, coffee, cereals, and yoghurt. The caretaker was a pleasing woman. She explained away the sudden power tripping as something totally unexpected and rare and the lack of water supply from one of their overhead water tanks resulting from some inmates inadvertently leaving the water tap open during the night. A few other guests sitting in the dining room too spoke highly about the place.  Though we weren’t fully satisfied with the explanations, we had sumptuous breakfast and left the cabin house around 11.30 AM towards Denali.

The drive to Denali took nearly 3 hours and we reached our hotel at around 4.00 PM. The front desk at the hotel was very elegant and impressive. A coffee shop functioned in one corner and a gift shop in another corner. However, the rooms were located in a number of smaller condo units spread out in a sprawling campus. No parking was there in front of our condo unit and we had a cumbersome walk over quite a distance carrying our heavy luggage to access our room. It was drizzling too at that time.

Once we lodged our luggage in our room, the first thing we wanted to do was to buy our tickets for the Denali National Park Shuttle Tour for the next day. So, we went to the Wilderness Access Center and bought our tickets for the 66 miles, 8 hours long, Eilson Visitor Center Tour scheduled for 9.00 AM on Friday. We had also planned to return to Anchorage Friday night and so, we decided to get off the shuttle at Toklat River Point to shorten the tour to six hours.

After buying our tickets, we went for some shopping. We couldn’t do any other activity for the rest of the evening since it rained intermittently. We went back to the hotel, prepared our dinner for the night and lunch for the next day, and went to sleep after finishing our dinner.

Friday, the 19^th July:

The Athabascan, the indigenous people of North America, called the high mountain, ‘Denali’ to mean ‘the high one.’ The place is habitat for wild animals like grizzlies, caribou, wolves, moose, dall sheep and others. It is also a place for gold mining. The development of a National Park in Denali owes to a great extent to the dream of one Charles Sheldon, an early conservationist and gentleman hunter from Vermont along with Harry Karstens, a legendary outdoorsman and dog musher. By 1917, after almost a decade of hard work, Sheldon and others persuaded American Congress to create Mount McKinley National Park. Four years later, in 1921, Karstens was hired as its first superintendent. President Jimmy Carter, in December 1980, with only weeks left in his presidency, signed into law a legislation that established over 100 million acres of new national parks, preserves, and wildlife refuges in Alaska that included enlargement of Mount Mckinley National Park from two million acres to six million acres into the present Denali National Park and Preserve. Mount Mckinley or Denali is visible from both Anchorage and Fairbanks and lies between the two cities. The park is a six million acres of wild land bifurcated by a ribbon road. Visitors’ vehicles are not allowed beyond the first fifteen miles of this road up to the Savage River. Beyond this, one has to use only the shuttle bus service operated by the Wilderness Access Center.
Denali is a popular destination for hikers, mountaineers, campers and for those interested in winter sports. It also forms part of bear country and visitors are advised to avoid encountering with bears. Elaborate instructions are available on what is needed to be done when one sees a bear.

 

 

 

We reached the Wilderness Access Center well in time to catch our 9.00 AM shuttle for the Eilson Visitor Center tour. We had to carry the heavy baby-car-seats too, as this was mandatory for children to travel in a shuttle bus too. I think a lot of fuss is made in some places in America in the name of security and safety. It was very quite an onerous job carrying the heavy baby-car-seats everywhere you go. The tour operators could have as well provided a few baby seats in every shuttle bus. The baby seats can be easily fixed and removed. It was raining and drizzling intermittently. The driver was a lady and as she drove, she also functioned as the tour conductor describing the places, scenic spots, the mountains, the rivers, the history of the inhabitants of the terrain, and so on all the way. The shuttle passed through Savage River, Sanctuary River, Tehlenika River, Igloo Creek, Sable Park, and Polychrome Overlook before it reached Toklat River. One got fabulous views from Igloo Creek stopover.

The shuttle stopped once in every one-and-half hours for restroom facility. At other places, it just stopped for a few minutes for tourists to take pictures. Tourists were advised to bring their own lunch or snacks, as no facility was available on the way. Besides, we were not allowed to eat anything outside the shuttle bus to avoid attracting animals and birds. The rain was a real dampener and many of the scenic spots were covered by mists. Sun came out partially here and there, but mostly not seen.

We reached Toklak River at 1.00 PM. We got off from the shuttle to take another one for getting back to the Wilderness Access Centre. In Denali, there are tours go up to Kantishna after crossing Wonder Lake and Reflection Pond. We understand, on a clear day, one gets a view of 20320 feet high McKenly Mountain, the tallest in U.S.A, from many viewing points. In Wonder Lake and Reflection Pond, on a clear day, one can see a reflection of the McKenly Mountain in the waters of the lake. However, these trips could take anything about 11 hours. For a visitor to Denali, I think one would need at least three days to do full justice.

At Toklak River, there was a tented souvenir shop and a number of restrooms. Tourists were allowed to get down from and change into the shuttle bus anywhere, subject to availability of seats. We didn’t get proper seats in the 12.20 PM shuttle from Toklak River; I felt the driver could have been a little more accommodative to ask a few fellow tourists to move over to other seats to accommodate the small children with us, but he didn’t. So, we had to wait till 1.00 PM. In the meantime, as the rains stopped temporarily, we walked around a bit taking pictures.

We boarded the 1.00 PM shuttle. The driver was quite accommodative requesting a few other passengers to move to other seats to make room for us and for the kids, so the kids could sit by our side.

We returned back to Wilderness Access Center by around 3.00 PM. We went back to our hotel, did some shopping, packed our things, put them in our car and left Denali around 5.30 PM for Anchorage.

On the whole, I felt, if weather was better, we could have enjoyed the Denali tour much more.

We stopped over at Taco Bell at Wasila on the way, for dinner. We reached Embassy Suites Hotel in Anchorage by around 11.00 PM when it was still not dark. Viji and Sanjay went out to take pictures, after we checked into the hotel room.

Saturday, the 20^th July:

We got up leisurely around 8.00 AM. The hotel offered cooked-to-order breakfast in addition to regular items. We had a rich breakfast. In the meantime, Viji and Balaji went to return the rented car. The hotel arranged an airport shuttle to take us to the airport. We were there at the airport around 12.45 PM. Viji and Balaji along with the children left by 3.00 PM flight to Phoenix via Seattle and we left by a 4.20 PM flight to Chicago via Seattle. We reached Chicago on 21^st morning around 6.30 AM and our flight was delayed by an hour.

On the whole, our trip to Alaska was very satisfying. I am very happy that one of my long time passions was fulfilled during this year. I thank Viji and Balaji for that. I thank Sanjay and Sahana for their excellent cooperation for most part. They are small children and become restless when they are bound in a car seat for continuously long hours. That was understandable. They just want to be free. Only we lack the ability and innovation to keep them cheerful when they become restless.

A trip to Alaska is very costly too. The flight tickets, the hotels, the rented car, the groceries, the entrance tickets to various tours, facilities and shopping are all prohibitively costly. I thank Sri Amma Bhagawan for making this tour possible without any discomfort.

Now, Kailash and Manasarover in Himalayas seem to be my next target.

Summary:

Alaska is a must see place in one’s life, if one can afford. It is in places like Alaska where one finds Nature’s play in full. The scenery, the serene and clean atmosphere, the quiet ambience, the whispering cool winds, gurgling rivers and waters, expansive land and space, frightening mountain heights, tantalizing lakes and most importantly the clean and smooth road systems of Alaska are something to be remembered for lifetime.

 

Alaska - Our trip during July, 2013 - Part IV

Wednesday, the 17^th July:

For this day, we had booked tickets for a cruise ride at Whittier, 88 miles away from Seward (and 60 miles South of Anchorage). Whittier sits at the head of the Passage Canal. We drove back on the Seward highway until we reached Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet and then into Portage glacier road. There is a 2.5 miles long Anton Anderson Memorial railroad tunnel (locally known as the Whittier tunnel or Portage tunnel), through the Maynard Mountain hills, just before Whittier.

Whittier tunnel, along with the port at Whittier, was built as a military facility during the Second World War by the U.S. Army. It is the second longest highway tunnel, and longest combined rail and highway tunnel, in North America. It links the Seward highway south of Anchorage with Whittier and is the only land access to the town. The tunnel is named after the army engineer who supervised construction of the rail spur through Maynard Mountain. The tunnel is a critical bottleneck. It allows traffic to flow from one side to the other, allowing 15-minutes slot for the vehicles and another 15-minutes slot for the train. That meant, once in an hour, you got a 15 minute slot to cross through the tunnel. We couldn’t afford to be late, so we had started from our hotel at Seward quite early and we were there in front of the tunnel just five minutes before the suggested 10.30 AM slot for our crossing-over.

Whittier is just a small port town with a population of less than 300 most of who stay in one big building. The spur of the Alaska Railroad to Camp Sullivan, as the place was originally named by the army, was completed in 1943 and the port became the entrance for U.S. soldiers into Alaska. The port remained an active army facility until 1960. The two huge buildings that dominate Whittier were built after World War II. The 14-story Hodge building, now known as Begich Towers, was built for housing solders and the Bucker Building, completed in 1953, was called the ‘City under one roof.’ Both these buildings were at one time the largest buildings in Alaska. The Begich building is now a condominium housing nearly all the Whittier’s residents. Whittier was incorporated in 1969. Tsunamis triggered by the 1964-Good Friday Earthquake severely damaged the town, including the now abandoned Bucker Building. Whittier is a popular port of call for cruise ships. Whittier is also popular with tourists, sport fishermen and hunters. The Whittier Glacier near Whittier was named for the American poet John Greenleaf Whittier in 1915.

We boarded the 12.30 PM 26-Glacier Cruise. The cruise ship, we were told, would help us explore glacier carved Fjords, ancient ice and towering mountains of the Chugach National Forest. A quick reference to Google described a Fjord (pronounced as F’eord – the letter ’j’ being silent, also spelled as ‘fiord’) as: “a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created in a valley carved by glacial activity.” I learn that the coasts of Norway, Iceland and Greenland have many fjords.

Some more interesting information about Whittier: Long before Westerners arrived, Chugach Eskimos, now known as Alutiq, crossed the pass that separates Prince William Sound from the Cook Inlet’s Turnagain Arm in search of fish, almost 7000 years ago, as the glaciers began to retreat. Miners later took the route to reach the gold fields of Turnagain Arm. In Geography, a Sound or Seaway is “a long, relatively wide body of water, larger than a strait or channel, forming an inlet or connecting two large bodies of water, such as two seas, or a sea and a lake.” The Chugach Eskimos were water people whose lives centered on hunting and fishing. The Eyak, who shared the Sound, were people of the shore who came from Alaska’s Interior. These early people created small villages and lived in wooden houses. They made clothing from sea otter and seal, wove baskets from grass and spruce roots and used stones, bones, wood and shells to make tools. Today, about 1000 Alaska Natives live in the Sound where their lifestyles range from traditional subsistence to leading major Alaska Native-owned corporations.

Some of the greatest explorers who visited the Sound include:
·        Vitus Bering, a Danish navigator who served in the Russian Navy and who discovered Alaska in 1741,
·        George William Stellar, the famous German Naturalist, a member of the Bering Expedition, which made landfall at Kayak Island, approximately 100 miles southeast of Whittier. Many living species are named after Stellar: Stellar Sea Lion, Stellar Jay, Stellar Eider and Stellar Sea Eagle, and
·        Capt. James Cook who entered the Sound on May 12, 1778. While he traded with the area’s indigenous people, William Bligh – later of the Mutiny of the Bounty fame – took a small boat and paddled long enough to determine it was not the Northwest Passage. It was Bligh Reef that the Exxon Valdez struck in 1989.

That day’s 145-miles journey on the cruise aboard the largest, fastest catamaran in Alaska took us through rugged wilderness, towering glaciers and pristine waters.

Prince William Sound is 2100 square miles of islands and fjords, carved by 15 million years of glaciations and surrounded by the Chugach National Forest. It is America’s largest intact marine ecosystem and North America’s northern-most rain forest.  It is also one of the most active seismic regions in the world. The journey took us near the epicenter of the 1964 Good Friday earthquake that measured 9.2 on the Richter scale.

From Whittier, the cruise headed east through Passage Canal to the Egg Rock sea lion rookery in Port Wells. We continued to scenic Esther Passage where only small ships can navigate. High mountains protect this narrow channel from rough seas and winds. Many animals call this area home. Bald eagles are frequently seen fishing. Orcas are common and sea otters are almost always present. Beyond Esther Passage, the vessel headed north in College Fjord, a glacier-rich region whose namesake came from a science expedition led by American railroad financier Edward Harriman. The team named each glacier along the northwest side of the fjord after prominent women’s colleges, while those on the southwest side were named after men’s colleges. Next we cruised to Barry Arm and Surprise Glacier in Harriman Fjord. The cruise plotted a path through the ice-filled waters up to the front of the glacier so we could watch for ice calving into the sea. The ship made the last stop at the kittiwake bird rookery just across the bay from Whittier. It is reported that more than 10000 birds inhabit these rocky cliffs each summer laying eggs, fishing and teaching young hatchlings the survival tips they will need before they fly south for winter.

Our routes took us past three types of glaciers found in Alaska:
1) Tidewater Glaciers: Pressured by their own weight, active tidewater glaciers move toward the water, ending at the ocean’s edge where they frequently ‘calve,’ shedding slabs of ice that crash into the sea. These floating icebergs are so heavy that only the very tip is visible.
2) Piedmont Glaciers: These glaciers rest at the base of the mountain. They are formed when glacial ice forms a fan-shaped mass at the foot of the mountain range.
3) Alpine Glaciers: Also known as hanging glaciers, these ice masses start high on the slopes of mountains, and literally ran from the mountainsides.

We also learnt that the areas surrounding our journey are habitat for more than 1645 animal species, some of the important species being: Sea otter, Harbor seal, Ribbon seal, Stellar sea lion, Black-legged kittiwake, Eagle, Black bear, Mountain goat, Dall’s porpoise, Orca/Killer Whale, Humpback whale and Minke whale.

 

 

 

 

The journey on the cruise was exhilarating. It was a great experience standing on the deck outside the cruise ship, and facing the strong wind. We saw glacier after glacier, otters, eagles and many more. Lunch was provided in the cruise and it was just okay. When the journey was about to end, the Forest Ranger who was conducting the tour gathered all the small children, administered a pledge to all of them and presented a Junior Forest Ranger Badge to every one of them. Sanjay was once again very proud. We were back at the harbor at 05.30 PM. We, immediately, rushed to our vehicle to get back through the tunnel and drove all the way to Talkeetna, north of Anchorage, on our way to Denali National Park, our last destination in our Alaska tour.

………..to be concluded in Part V

Alaska: Our visit during July, 2013

Introduction

I love travelling and visiting places. To visit Alaska was one of my lifetime dreams. I dream a lot and aspire a lot. Obviously, I still have many more dreams to be realized. I am a regular visitor to U.S. during the last little more than a decade and for one reason or other, a trip to Alaska was eluding me every time. Finally, it materialized this year during July. We discussed a number of destinations in Alaska, debated between the sea route by a cruise from Seattle and the air route by a flight, the number of days required and the places to be visited etc. We decided upon Anchorage as our destination. We started planning for the trip since March/April. We had most of the arrangements done over the Internet before leaving for Alaska.   

On 12^th July afternoon, while Lakshmi, my wife and I left from Chicago for Alska, Balaji, my son-in-law and Viji along with their children, Sanjay and Sahana, left from Phoenix around the same time the same day. We changed flight at Seattle, Washington after a four-hour wait while they changed flight at Portland, Oregon. We all reached Anchorage almost around the same time at 9.30 in the night. When we came out of the airport, we were pleasantly surprised that it was bright and sunny and looked like broad daylight. Sun doesn’t really seem to set during peak summer in Alaska. In Alaska, they usually have long days lasting almost 20 hours during summer and in winter, it is the reverse – just a couple of hours. It took long for me to understand that for earth, with its spheroid shape and axial tilt, its northern hemisphere is exposed to Sun for most part of the day and night and thus the days are very long during summer and the reverse during winter.

Alaska is situated in northwest extreme corner of North American continent sharing its international boundary with Russia to the West, only separated by the Arctic and Pacific Ocean, and Canada to the east. It is the largest state in United States by area, but the 4^th least densely populated of all the States. I understand that nearly half of Alaska’s residents live around Anchorage region. Oil and Natural Gas exploration and Fishing are the major industries, supporting the economy of Alaska. Alaska originally belonged to Russia and was purchased over from them on March 30, 1867 for $7.2 M. It became the 49^th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959. In their native language, it is known as Alyeska, “the great land.”

 Saturday, the 13^th July:

Marriot Residence Inn, where we stayed, was an excellent place and offered fabulous breakfast in the morning. We had hired a mini-van. Viji and Balaji had brought their two car seats from Phoenix for the children. Carrying the car seats everywhere, when one travels with the kids within U.S is one of the annoying factors, but something that one will have to live with. They also brought a frying pan and rice-cooker. We made some grocery purchases locally and cooked our own food in the hotel room. That was our routine on almost all days during our stay in Alaska. Getting decent vegetarian food could be very difficult in Alaska. So, cooking our own South Indian food, kept all of us free from any possible stomach trouble.

This day, we had planned to explore scenic places around Anchorage. Our first destination was to be Alyeska Mountain resort. Balaji took the steering with Viji sitting by his side in the front, for helping with directions. They had their GPS in place, but as we had seen in a few other places too, the printed maps provided by the local Tourist Information Centers were very much helpful in some interior places.

Cook Inlet stretches 180 miles from Gulf of Alaska up to Anchorage which looks surrounded by the two arms of Cook Inlet – Knik Arm on northern side and Turnagain Arm on the southern side. Just south of Anchorage, the Seward Highway hugs the dramatic shorelines of Turnagain Arm, arguably one of the most beautiful stretches of highway in America. Chugach State Park's 3000-feet mountains jut up on our left. Alyeska Mountain was 2500 feet high. We drove through this 41 miles long, scenic, four-lane Seward highway along the Turnagain Arm.

At night, I am told, the sprawling, sometimes four-mile-wide flats of Turnagain Arm seem to stretch like a plain to the opposite shores of Cook Inlet, where mammoth sloping mountains abruptly stop their flat expanse. Each turn during this drive revealed another scenic wonder.

Turnagain Arm is one of only about 60 bodies of water worldwide to exhibit a tidal bore, a tidal phenomenon in which the leading edge of the incoming tide forms a wave or waves of water that travels up a river or a narrow bay against the directions of the river or the bay’s current. Turnagain Arm sees the largest tidal range in U.S. with a mean of 30 feet, and the fourth highest in the world. The ocean’s natural 12-hour 25-minute tidal cycle is close to Turnagain Arm’s natural resonance frequency, which then reinforces the tide similar to water sloshing in a bathtub. That day, if we had waited till 10.30 PM in the night, we could have seen this very unique tidal bore phenomenon. Because of the children, we couldn’t afford to come back to Turnagain Arm to witness this.

We then reached the base station for going up the 2750 feet high Alyeska Mountain to reach the ski resort through a closed rope car. Mount Alyeska was part of the larger Chugach mountain range and the Alyeska resort is the largest ski area in the region. When we reached the base station, the first to welcome us was a swamp of mosquitoes. Yes, mosquitoes in America. Travel advisory strongly recommended carrying mosquito repellants while one travels to Alaska. We bought our tickets, got into the rope car and reached the ski station at the top, viewing on the way the scenic beauty around the hills and the valley down below. There we met a just-married couple – An African-American and a White lady at the Ski Station and took pictures with them.

The areas around the entrance to the ski resort were flat closer to the station, sloping up and down in different directions. They offered excellent opportunities to hike. Patches of snow were scattered here and there. The view was very good. We walked around, took lot of pictures, and played in the slippery snow.

 

We returned back to the base station and drove to Anchorage stopping over at several scenic places to take pictures of the Turnagain Arm Inlet.

We prepared dinner at the hotel room and went to sleep.

                                                                                                                        ……. To be continued in PART II