Tracks along Turnagain Arm, part of the Cook Inlet southeast of Anchorage.
This area is very beautiful, and the drive around it provides many wonderful views.
Information about the Beluga whales that travel in this inlet.
This is the staging area and entrance to the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel. It is 2.5 miles long, making it the longest tunnel in North America!
The shack in the center left of the picture is the entrance building. This tunnel leads to Whittier, Alaska.
The area surrounding the entrance was beautiful.
The entrance to the tunnel. Until a few years ago, this was strictly a train tunnel. A roadbed to accommodate cars as well as trains was added so that one could drive to Whittier.
Though these two pictures are not very good, you can see the rails in the road. There were several "safehouses" along the way in case of emergency.
This is a single lane tunnel, so there are schedules for the traffic, with each direction of car and train traffic getting fifteen minutes of access.
In Whittier, this boat sits in the Passage Canal, leading to the Prince William Sound.
This building of condos is called the Begich Towers, where over half of the residents of Whittier live. I liked the waterfalls in the background.
Another building in Whittier originally built for housing, but now very run down.
A closer look at the waterfall in an earlier picture.
I took a glacier sightseeing tour on the "Klondike Express" in hopes to see twenty-six glaciers, as advertised.
The Phillip's Cruises and Tours boat took us to some very beautiful areas of Prince William Sound.
Our wake. The Catamaran traveled up to thirty-eight knots.
Because of the speed, I was not permitted to stand on the front of the ship where I like to stand. However, on the upper deck, I could stand by the bridge and feel the strong air pressure of our speed.
Our first up close glacier.
This is a picture taken off the bow of the ship with me in the reflection.
Using my telephoto lens on an opening in the glacier.
From a slightly different angle and closer to the opening.
It was interesting to hear the sounds of impact as we traveled through the icefields. See the scraps on the paint job?
I was fascinated by these glaciers.
Here is our boat moving a rather large ice chunk out of the way.
More glaciers!
The Ocean Princess was touring the sound for glaciers. Because our ship was much smaller, were were able to get closer to the glaciers. The Ocean Princess has a bridge webcam!
Another glacier with a nice waterfall beside it.
We were able to view many types and shapes of glaciers.
I got to see and hear a glacier calving! It was incredible. And it was also interesting to feel the wave generated by it with somewhat of a delay.
A closer look at the calving.
The was a very large chunk of the glacier. Another interesting thing offered by the cruise was an opportunity to have glacier ice in a drink! It was very dense and mostly impossible to crunch!
The view of Whittier as we returned to dock.
The captain, left, and another officer docking the ship.
This is also a port for the Alaska Marine Highway.
Brad Phillips, who owns the ship and runs the tour company.
On my return to Anchorage, I stopped to visit the Portage Glacier area. The Portage Glacier - Chugach National Forest Begich-Boggs Visitor Center can be seen to the left.
