Day 11, 7/1/2002, Sunrise 3:41am - Sunset 12:15am (It's CRAZY but that's 20 and a half hours with the sun in the sky - for 3 and a half hours the sun is below the horizon but it doesn't get dark); cloudy skies with occasional showers
Seward to Denali State Park
Via Bus; by way of Anchorage
It's a short trip from College Fjord to Seward, about 120 miles. It's an additional 250 miles by sea to Anchorage (all the way around my stepson, Jason's stomping grounds, The Kenai Peninsula), our ship docks early in the morning at Seward so there will be time to get 2000 people off and another 2000 on by late afternoon. Our disembarkation actually started last evening, we had to have our luggage outside our room by 8pm to facilitate moving it to the cargo holds for loading onto trucks before we awoke this morning. Actual disembarkation was staggered according to your destination. We were in the second scheduled group, got off the ship before 6:30am, staggered onto a bus and headed for Anchorage. I didn't say headed toward Anchorage because we had to go around the eastern end of Turnagain Arm, through Whittier first.
It was quite a scenic and enjoyable ride with a rest stop at the "Big Game Alaska Wildlife Center" where we saw musk ox, caribou, moose, bison, black bear cubs, a grizzly bear, Sitka black-tailed deer, elk, owls and eagles up close but caged. Turnagain Arm is long and relatively shallow which creates an interesting phenomenon we got to observe, the Bore Tide. The outgoing tide actually takes longer to exit the arm than the period between the tides so the incoming tide rolls over it in churning, breaking waves. As we rode along the north shore of Turnagain Arm we heard from another bus that mountain sheep had been spotted ahead of us. Near where we saw the Bore Tide we caught a glimpse of the sheep (Dall Sheep) on a hill side very near the road. Another interesting phenomenon of the arm and other coastal waters in this area are the lingering effects of the 1964 earthquake. A 35 foot tsunami pushed sea water far inland along these inlets killing all the plants that could not tolerate the salt water. Miles of skeletal forests remain today.
Anchorage is quite a modern city, of course it is almost all new, having been nearly completely rebuilt since the '64 quake. It and Fairbanks are the most like any city you would find in the lower 48 of all the cities we visited in Alaska. We had a full two hours there for lunch, shopping and just general wandering around before we got back on the bus and headed for interior Alaska and 'The Great One'. On the afternoon portion of our ride we heard a lot of personal information about our driver and just a bit of historical, geophysical and biological info. We took a rest stop at the Iditarod Organizing Committee's Museum & Visitors Center where we saw dog sleds and watched some of our fellow tourists ride in a wagon pulled by sled dogs.
After a steady, gradual climb through lowland spruce/alder forests past crystal clear lakes we arrived at the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge in time to settle in (exchange for our proper luggage), have dinner (with the shouting manager) and enjoy a National Park Ranger's talk on "Parenting in Animals" before retiring to prepare for our first unscheduled day since we left Seattle.
Created on ... July 15, 2002