We’ve looked at Holly’s excellence in the Mayor’s Marathon and our various activities in Anchorage that weekend, so let’s wrap up the trip with a Sunday excursion down the Seward Highway to see a glacier, some wildlife and general pleasant surroundings, and have a nice meal.
But in reality, our Seward Highway excursion started on Saturday night when Holly rented a car at the last minute (and at exorbitant rates). I wasn’t involved in the process, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t get frustrated when we couldn’t get it to start the first time we tried to use it. It was a terrible, terrible vehicle.
Anyway, on Sunday morning, we had one final meal (and coffee) at Snow City Cafe, before heading south out of Anchorage on the Seward Highway. We weren’t going the whole 127 miles to Seward, just the first 50 to the Portage Glacier. Nevertheless, the scenery is pretty great. The huge Chugach State Park on your left, Cook Inlet/Turnagin Arm on your right with the Kenai Peninsula across the water. It makes for a very pretty drive. Even with the severe cloud cover and rain that graced us.
At one of the early scenic viewing spots, I used the iPhone Photosynth app to take this panoramic photo. It did a pretty good job of stitching the photos together, but you’ll have to click on the photo to expand it to get the best view.
Just a few miles further, we saw a pack/herd/flock/whatever of Dall Sheep chillin’ on the hillside.
Seriously, the views are awesome.
We made it to the Portage Glacier, which is accessible by a 1-hour cruise on Lake Portage. Reportedly, the cloud cover made the glacier bluer than a sunny day.
I must have taken fifty different pictures of that glacier, but none appear to be especially more interesting than any other, so we’ll move on. Of some interest is this other glacier barely visible in the center of the below photo connected to the Portage Glacier about where this photo was taken in the 70s.
At the other end of the lake, icebergs from the glacier collect. Holly was much more interested in the icebergs than the glacier–and only partially because it was 15 degrees colder out by the glacier.
Just a bit away from the glacier is the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center where we saw lots of cool wildlife. In order of appearance below: Brown Bears, Wood Bison, Moose, Musk Ox, Black Bear, Elk, and Porcupine.
My favorite animal–fittingly on July 4th!–was the Bald Eagle. Just a cool animal.
On our way back towards Anchorage, Holly had wanted to take the Alyeska Aerial Tram to the top of Mt. Alyeska where you can–on a clear day–take in the panorama. But we wouldn’t have been able to see anything, so we stopped in for lunch at The Bake Shop in Alyeska for excellent sandwiches (and a root beer from Ft. Worth?).
We made one more scenic stop on the return leg–at Bird Creek.
No complaints about the scenery, but we were both exhausted from all our walking, our late nights, the driving–and someone ran a marathon. So we were ready to head home.
Beautiful!