Today’s post features a unique and always fun experience when traveling toward the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska (if you missed my first Alaska post, you can click on this link: “First Day in the Big ‘A'”). One of my favorite stops is Whittier, Alaska, a very small town (population ~200) located on Prince William Sound. You can get to Whittier by traveling (by boat) farther north from the Inside Passage, by small plane (I don’t believe any commercial flights come in to Whittier), or by the most popular way, the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel (also called the Whittier Tunnel). The one catch? You have to travel “through” one of Chugach’s mountains, taking this 2 1/2 mile tunnel!
And what is unique about this tunnel, you may be asking? Well, it is only one lane wide, meaning traffic moves through the tunnel in only one direction at a time (the current schedule allows traffic traveling to Whittier on the 1/2 hour and traffic leaving Whittier on the hour. But there is also a train track that runs through the tunnel! So, whenever a train comes through, all traffic is stopped to allow the train to pass! Quite an experience :o)
Here are a few images I made from my Droid phone, as I was driving to the tunnel entrance:
I just arrived in Homer yesterday afternoon. My bush plane flight to Hallo Bay Bear Camp is scheduled for Sunday morning. However, upon my arrival in Homer, I stopped by to talk to the camp owner and found that I may be able to go out a day early! The weather right now is “iffy”, but if the cloud ceiling is sufficient enough, I will be on the flight sometime this morning :o)
I was really hoping for some great opportunities with spring brown bear cubs, but have found that there is a serious shortage of spring cubs in Katmai this year, and so far no one has been able to explain this unusual situation. But on the bright side, I was told that there is an awesome surprise awaiting me there … I won’t divulge that surprise just yet … don’t want to jinx my luck! But I guarantee it should provide some great photo opps :o)
Since I will be away from the internet for a few days, I’m working on getting some of my older, popular blog posts scheduled to post while I am away.