North to Alaska

The sequence of photographs which follow were taken on our various hikes in Denali. They should give the reader an idea of the terrain, flora, and fauna we found in the areas visited during our hikes. The left-most photo shows our Elderhostel sub-group, one of 4, each of which was limited by park regulations to 11, including the leader. Here, Heng is temporarily at the end, serving as the "sweep". Our first hike was up Mt. Healy.

We also spent one day on the park bus to visit the interior of the park and had a chance to see more of the local wildlife. I had the impression of being on an African safari, with tourists gawking at the animals: “Stop! Lion at 3 o’clock!” But unlike an African safari where vehicles are generally free to drive everywhere up to the animals, vehicles in Denali are restricted to the one road in the park. Hence, without a telephoto lens or binoculars, animals are often lost in the distance (see arrow).

With the week having come to a close, we returned to the train station to board the slow train to Anchorage. At a leisurely pace averaging 30 miles per hour, the trip south to Anchorage takes 8 hours.

After a brief stop at the town of Talkeetna on the final leg of the trip by rail, we had the relatively rare opportunity of actually seeing the imposing Denali peeking above the clouds (see arrow below).

From Anchorage, we picked up a rental car and headed east along the Glenn Highway, paralleling the Chugach Mountains for about 100 miles. Suddenly, the 4-mile-wide terminus (lower end) of Matanuska Glacier popped into view (lower photo). The upper photo shows the glacier winding its way 24 miles down a broad valley from the center of the Chugach Mountains. The glacier is readily accessible by car, with parking at a few hundred paces from the terminus.

We explored the glacier for several hours, occasionally backtracking to avoid crevices or areas which were too steep to execute without the proper equipment.

At the left, Heng is looking at chunks of ice formed by the movement of the glacier over the undulating valley floor of bedrock. But when standing on a glacier, it is difficult to get a sense of the size of these chunks. One might guess that they are perhaps 6 feet high. Only when one realizes that the dots in the left photo are actually adults participating in an ice-climbing class (right photo) does one get a sense of the enormity of glacial features.

Leaving Matanuska Glacier and continuing our drive east to the town of Glennallen, we paused to let a moose and an awkward, several-day-old calf cross the road. Because an adult moose is so tall, when collisions occur, its body is typically scooped up by the car’s hood and flung directly into the front windshield. Could be pretty messy.

Alaska is also renown for its large mosquitoes (as implied by a local street sign), but we managed to avoid most of them by not staying out in the evening and possibly by visiting in the Spring, before they’ve really have a chance to propagate. In the photo, a mosquito is preparing itself for dinner from the back of my hand.

As we continued east away from the Chugach Mountains, the snow-covered Wrangell Mountains, partially enveloped in clouds, loomed in the background (left photo). Then approaching the town of Glennallen, with Mt. Drum dead ahead, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve beckoned us to visit. Oh well, something to do the next time around! In any case, since the road into the park is gravel, rental cars are generally not permitted there.

Turning right, heading south on the Richardson Highway toward the coast, we make a short stop at the Worthington Glacier. However, lingering snow prevents access to the glacier. Then a few more miles take us to Thompson Pass, considered among the snowiest places in the US (the highest recorded annual snowfall is just above 80 feet! Roadside poles visible in the photo (on the right) aid snowplow drivers in keeping to the road.

The photo on the right (also taken from the pass) shows the road heading down to Valdez, an ice-free port serving as the southern terminus of the Alaska pipeline. The original town of Valdez sank into the sea during the Good Friday Earthquake of 1964, buried under the glacial silt that had formed the foundation of the city. It has since been rebuilt 4 miles to the west. The town became better known because of the oil tanker the “Exxon Valdez” which, shortly after filling up at the oil terminal in 1989, ran into a reef and caused a massive oil spill and associated environmental damage.

After a quiet night at Blueberry Mary’s B&B in Valdez (left photo taken from the bedroom), we left town via the ferry M/V Aurora (right photo), heading west under overcast skies to the town of Whittier, 8 hours away.

Just outside Whitttier is found the Portage Glacier Trail, which quickly leads to a splendid overview of the mountain peaks, glacier, and the lake at its base. Unfortunately, because of overcast and foggy skies that accompanied our visit, we had to buy a postcard (below) to witness the full extent of what we were missing. We went anyway.

Sandwiched between the white cloud cover and areas of melting snow, Heng climbs up the Portage Trail from Whittier. The illustration shows a warning posted on the door to the nearby Visitor Center. In Alaska, because of the impressive views before us, it is easy to forget to periodically look over our shoulders to see if any wildlife are “accompaning” us.

View from top of Portage Trail. With a quickly billowing cloud and fog cover periodically obscuring the terminus of the glacier, I initially had the impression that I was seeing someone on a kayak on the lake at the base of the glacier (in circle). But viewing with binoculars showed that my perspective was wrong once again. I then saw that the “kayak” was a large tourist cruise ship passing in front of the towering glacier.

Whether man-made or otherwise, the impact of global warming is indisputable. Because of climatic warming in Alaska this past century, the glacier’s terminus has receded several miles uphill.

Below left is a view from the Visitor Center, with Burns Glacier in the background (black arrow). In the foreground are leftover “icebergs” from the calving of Portage Glacier, which is no longer visible but has receded behind the dark mountainside on the right (red arrow). A century ago, the Visitor Center would have been at the terminus of Portage Glacier. The glacier has since receded until it is no longer visible from the Center and left behind a large lake.

A paved path provides easy access to the glacier’s terminus, visible through the trees at the left center. Signs posted along the trail indicate the past location of the glacier’s terminus, which is receding due to increasing average global temperatures. Under overcast skies, we embarked on the considerably more strenuous Harding Icefield Trail (dashed line).

On the left (below) is a view looking downhill to the Visitor Center parking lot where the trail began. The center photo is a view of the Harding Icefield, which feeds Exit Glacier, taken before we stopped our ascent and returned. Extensive areas of still unmelted snow (right photo below) and passing time prevented us from reaching the end of the trail, which usually opens in July, a month after we made our attempt. We can only imagine the view from the end of the path, looking down onto the Harding Icefield. Oh, well, this is another trail to complete on our next trip to Alaska.

View of Anchorage from Earthquake Park, commemorating the enormous Good Friday quake---9.2 on the Richter scale---which struck in 1964.

A view (right photo below) of the Anchorage area looking west from just outside the perimeter fence of the now-abandoned Site Summit (left photo taken during its heyday). In the 1960s and 1970s, Site Summit housed Nike missiles as part of the front line defense in the North Pacific against attacks from the Soviet Union over the North Pole. The area is now open for mountain walking and skiing.

The Alaska Native Heritage Center provides a wide range of activities reflecting the arts, skills, and way of life of the native Alaskan people: dancing and singing, story-telling, sport competition (below), crafts, full-size replicas of homes in which the various Alaskan tribes lived, etc.

Below are two examples of competitive sporting events that one can practice during those long Alaskan winter nights.

Try this (left): Sit on the floor, hold your right foot with your left hand, push off with you right hand, kick the ball (about 7 ft above the floor) with your left foot, and fall back into the original position.

Or if you mastered that, try this (right): Squat on the ground, push off with your feet, turn in mid-air to kick the ball simultaneously with both feet, and fall back in the squatting position.

Sunset over Anchorage