Another day, millions of other impressions. Today it is driving the motorhome on railroad tracks, experience Russian architecture in Alaska, sail the catamaran in south Alaska waters, and see the oil shipping port of Valdez (yes, THAT Valdez). How come that I already know all this? Consider the time lag between you reading this in Europe and me being in Alaska 😉
A long night lies behind me. It has been just great to sleep long hours, the fatigue really knocked me out yesterday. But wait! Long hours? It is 7 AM in the morning! We decide to postpone breakfast and instead make our way to the entrance gate of the Whittier tunnel. There’s a chance to pass the tunnel only for 15 minutes once every hour, the next slot being 7.30. So let’s use this chance!
Whittier – what a sounding name! To get to that place we queue up in front of what seems to be a tall but narrow tunnel. The warden takes our 12.- bucks and tells us to queue up in line 3. Line 3? Yes, line 3, on of six waiting lines, traffic light regulated, next to each other to “collect” the waiting vehicles until their time to pass the tunnel has come. 7.30. The first traffic light signals green, the “normal” cars start their way in direction of the tunnel and disappear in the black hole, one after the other. Then it is our turn. We follow them and suddenly the road leads us directly onto the railroad tracks, coming out of the black mouth. A short moment of surprise and then we are inside the tunnel. Crude rock surrounds us, concrete slabs between and aside the railroad tracks make this tunnel accessible also for cars, on a single lane. Now I see, why the guy has told us “max. 20 mph, minimum 100 feet distance, headlights on, stopping only in case of a real emergency”
After a few minutes we see daylight again. We reached Whittier. The town lays at a sound of the Pacific and was originally built the US as a secret, ice-free port, to transport material quickly to Anchorage. Having no access to the surrounding country, the mountains being too steep and icy, they constructed a train tunnel through the mountain to make access to the Anchorage side of the range. Only since 2000 cars can pass on their own, before that they had to be loaded onto trains. Hm, interesting concept might be interesting for my friends from ASFINAG if they partner up with the OEBB, the Austrian Federal Railways.
Anyway, for now it is enough time until the ferry to Valdez leaves, so we make for breakfast. Bagels and toast, butter, Philadelphia cheese, jam, ham, muesli and cornflakes, coffee and tea. Travelling with a motorhome has its advantages, I have to admit.
After queueing up again (this time for the ferry) and a very skilful loading of all the bus RVs, the smaller RVs, the cars and the motorbikes onto the ferry, we leave Whittier on the “Alaska Marine Highway” around 11 AM. 2.5 hours of travel lay before us, twice as fast as the normal ferry. We are lucky and enjoy one of the fleets’ giant ferry catamarans. On the way we pass sounds and fjords, dark green-greyish waters covered with fog and rain, later clearing up to a status of “clouds only”. Again a ranger (“Kathy”) spoils us with her company, explaining everything we can expect from the journey. I really admire this teaming up of park rangers with private companies, it makes travelling here so much more educating and worthwhile. Alaska, my congratulations! So we learn on the journey how to identify different kinds of whales, sea otters, sea lions and other animals by means of their behaviour, how they spout and blast, how they dive and so on. Beside the explanations Kathy is permanently on the lookout for the mentioned animals. We learn that given the cruise speed and depending on the distance, if she says “Whales 3 o’clock” we should rather have a look at three o’clock, four o’clock and behind to see something instead of keeping our eyes just to the right. And really, we sea some pacific porpoises hunting (at least we see the typical wave form they create) and later the big moment is coming: A large black fin, hard to say it’s size, cuts the waves at 11 o’clock, quickly wandering to the stern, coming up and diving again. My first Orca in the wild! A truly great moment! After this we keep our “Ferngläser” stuck to our eyes, eagerly looking out for more whales to come. But in the end it seems, we already used our luck in seeing this one, according to ranger Kathy being a “fully grown male Orca”.
Finally we draw close to the port of Valdez, passing by the infamous “Bligh reef” where the also infamous Exxon Valdez ran aground back in the late 80s and caused a catastrophy par excellence. If I understand it right it took four incredibly long days at that time to react properly to the accident – four days that could have saved a lot of wildlife and a lot of money as well. Listening to this I can’t help but shaking my head in disbelief. Thanks God in the meantime they have more adequate equipment and more adequate regulations concerning the tanker traffic up here.
The loading station can be watched only from the ferry terminal in Valdez. No guided tours any more since tragic 9/11. However it looks impressive even from this side of the bay.
Valdez itself is a rather small town again and it looks like living from fishing, oil and tourists. The place has a remarkable history, e.g. being one of the major landing spots for the gold rush’s thousands of prospectors, who made their way over the glaciers and several ranges up to the Klondike area and Yukon river. Given the photos and other exhibition peaces in the local museum, it must have been a really hard time. In 1964, long before the Exxon Valdez fiasco, another catastrophy devastated the (old) place. America’s so far biggest earthquake shattered the grounds for 5 long minutes, reaching 8.5 and 9.2 respectively on the scales of Richter and Momentum. The result: the original grounds of Valdez, built on the remainders of the glacier, thus laying just between the glacier and the sea, became “fluid” like wet sand if you shake it, causing the docks and a strip of land to just slide into the sea, the following tsunami rolling up the streets and devastating even more houses. In the time to come the citizens who hadn’t moved away after the tragedy decided to complete move the town to a different spot on the other side of the bay. Some took that by word and moved not only the household but the whole house.
Back to the present: After a first look around we decide for one of the camp grounds here that offers unlimited hot showers and WiFi-Access – somewhat a winning argument in my eyes 😉 Given the limited space abord our RV I really long for a “really long hot shower” before going to bed again.