Whittier

Saturday morning we headed out to Whittier (about an hour's drive from Anchorage) to go sea kayaking. Whittier is a unique town and kind of creepy. It was constructed by the US Government during WWII as a secret military installation. The location needed to be as inaccessible as possible. This location on Prince William Sound qualified. It is surrounded by 3500ft, impassible peaks, and lost in visibility-reducing cloud cover most of the time. The army built two high rise towers where more than 1000 residents lived, worked and shopped connected by a labyrinth of underground tunnels all maintained by the government until 1968. They also blasted a 2.7 mile long, one-way train tunnel through the granite. It is one of North America's engineering marvels. In 2000, the tunnel was overhauled for automobile traffic making it the longest auto tunnel in North America.. It is open each way for 15 minutes out of every hour. It is open the rest of the time for train traffic and to let the fumes dissipate. This photo shows us, in what we affectionately call "the gray whale", waiting to enter the tunnel after having paid our toll. Cornerstone Church has graciously given us the use of their church van while we are here.

We were greeted in Whittier with uncharacteristically clear, blue skies and a very unusual wind. Whittier is known for having such still water it looks like glass. But not on this day! No kayaking in the white caps today.

This is the boat harbor with a Princess cruise ship in port for the day.

The newer of the 2 high rise buildings and the only one still in use. Currently, this building houses all of the residents of the town as well as the store. Since Kayaking was out, we went to plan B and took a hike up over the mountain where the tunnel is. This is the view back down to Whittier Bay.

And this is the view the other direction looking down on Portage Lake and Glacier. That is a pretty good sized ship that you can take out from Whittier on a glacier cruise. This glacier is only visible from the water or by hiking the mountain. It was definitely worth the hike!

This is our group. Rhonda and Ben Bohart had joined us for the day. Ben is a native Alaskan and Rhonda has been here for the last three years. They are former students of Cliff's at Mid America and have been wonderful tour guides, and delightful company.

We left Whittier when the tunnel opened and headed to Girdwood for some lunch and another hike. This is a 5 mile hike through a lush forest. This is what the scenery looked like much of the way. I didn't get a photo but we did encounter swarms of the "state bird" for the first time while in this forest. Tucker was calling it "skeeter falls" when we left!


We crossed over the most beautiful river on a footbridge.

And then we came to a place where you could cross the river on a hand tram.

We took turns crossing in the tram.

And pulling it across.

This was the view looking down from the tram.

One more view of the river before we hiked out.

This is the back of the Alyeska hotel and resort right beside the trailhead. They were holding a wedding outside when we started up the trail.

Driving home, we saw our first wildlife! We are still arguing about whether they are mountain goats or sheep. Considering there are stuffed examples of both on the walls at the house, we should be certain. However, we think these are goats, but we could be wrong. Either way, it was fascinating to watch them climbing straight up the side of the mountain.

Today, Sunday, Terry preached his first sermon at Cornerstone. You can watch it at churchcornerstone.com (they are usually up on the web by the following Monday or Tuesday). It was great and the congregation has been wonderful!