Final Alaskan Views: Turnagain Arm

September 11. We left the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, and headed back towards Anchorage. We had only a few hours left in our amazing trip. We hoped to see beluga again in Turnagain Arm, and this time maybe get a better photo. But I guess the tides were wrong. There is a ferocious tidal current and huge range in this part of the world: you can get an idea of the current in this photo:

We did snap a few final photos along the way before reluctantly getting in our Toyota Matrix and heading to the airport for the long flights home.

Views of Turnagain Arm and the surounding mountains that rise from the sea:

Some panoramas from different viewpoints:

I actually explored this little island a bit ...

and found this cool tree:

Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center

September 11. Just 20 minutes or so from the Alyeska Resort is a pretty cool place, the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. A teammate of mine in the 2005 Midnight Sun Marathon had actually come here then and told me about it. It's primary purposes are to provide a haven for rescued wildlife and to have a breeding and research herd for the threatened wood bison, which I think is North America's largest land mammal. It is very rare, found in one area of Alaska and in parts of Northern Canada. They also have some breeding stock of musk oxen, which are rare in Alaska. Along the way, they take in badly needed money - it takes a lot of cabbage to run a place like this -


and provide education by opening the center to the public. Here are some photos of some of the major megafauna they have, all found somewhere in Alaska.

This bull elk had his harem all to himself. He bugled at times to make sure all other bulls knew he was the king, and also wanted to mix it up with a large musk ox in the next pen, who seemed very willing to oblige!
Musk oxen look almost prehistoric, don't they? I'd never seen this animal and would love to see one in the wild.

This four month old calf was so cute. She was kept in a separate pen because she was an orphan found in the wild, and would not be accepted by the herd.


This big bull caribou had a large pen to roam in, along with some pals:


Plains bison (buffalo) are found in small numbers in Alaska:


The wood bison is larger than its cousin from the plains, and is very rare throughout its range. One of the primary purposes of the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center is to provide a breeding herd for this threatened species:

What are the differences between a plains bison and a wood bison? I am glad that you asked!

Would you want to be this close to a grizzly in the wild? Me neither! A big front end loader dropped a big quantity of strawberries and grapes over the fence, and the three resident bears delicately picked them out of the water to eat. They favored the grapes over the berries.

Tram at Alyeska Resort

September 11 (Anchorage, Alaska). This is the ninth anniversary of that terrible day in our country's history, with so many consequences resulting from it. It is also our last day in Alaska, as we fly home at 11PM tonight on the dreaded, and aptly named, "redeye." We head into Anchorage, and debate what to do. I think if we could have found a good "flight-seeing" tour, Mary would have liked to have done that, which amazed me, given her extreme dislike of flying. I think she enjoyed the trip in and out of McCarthy more that she let on.

Finally, we left the Anchorage Visitor Center (love the sod on the roof!) ....

and decided to drive back along Turnagain Arm on the Seward Highway, stopping at a couple of places. We had done this drive in the rain two weeks ago, and it was gorgeous. Now, we wanted to see it on a "bluebird" day.

Our first stop was at the Alyeska Resort near Girdwood. We paid for a combination tram ride - lunch ticket at the resort and rode the cablecar up 2,000 feet to a spot high on a mountain with great views of Turnagain Arm and the surrounding mountains. The lunch was mediocre, to say the least, but the views were worth the price of admission!

We passed this car as we went up and it went down:

Near and far views of the resort (which looked very nice inside) from the tram:

Spectacular mountains were all around. The mountains here get something like 900 inches of natural snow a year, and are a magnet for skiers.
There was a race that day here with a lot of participants. During 10 hours, the racers run, walk, and crawl to the top along a steep footpath, gaining 2,000 feet elevation each time. Then they take the tram down, and come back up, repeating until the 10 hours is up. They looked pretty tired in the early afternoon when we were there. I think the winner last year made something like 13 trips! Here is one gal as seen from the tram:

Panoramic view from the mountain:

View of Turnagain Arm, ski lift in foreground:

Driving the Glenn Highway, Part 2

September 10 in Alaska - Glenn Highway continued from part 1.

We continued on towards Palmer, and from there to head south to Anchorage. At every turn, spectacular mountains, glaciers, rivers, and lakes greeted us. As in part 1, I am going to let the photos mostly speak for themselves, although they are inadequate to show how magnificent the scenery was.

These photos are from the Sheep Mountain - Gunsight Mountain area. We found the colors as spectacular as the topography, and took a lot of pictures. We actually did see our last Dall sheep, but it was too far away to get a photo.



Ominous sky, autumn colors:

Further along, at Glacier Park, were great views of the Matanuska Glacier, flowing out of the Chugach Mountains. It forms the Matanuska River, which we followed for some time on its inevitable journey to Knik Arm.

North side of the road around Glacier Park:

Further downstream, the Matanuska River, panorama and close up:

There was a beautiful lake along the highway:

Views near the King Mountain area:

Driving the Glenn Highway, Part 1

September 10. It is hard to believe that our two weeks in Alaska ends tomorrow, as we leave Kennecott after another great breakfast. Our destination today is Anchorage, where we will spend the night. To that end, we will fly from McCarthy to Chitina, get our car, backtrack to the Richardson Highway, travel back up this highway to Glennallen, then head west along the Glenn Highway towards Palmer. On the way, we stopped back at the visitor center for Wrangell - St. Elias National Park to see the Alaskan Indian exhibition, which was really interesting.

The Richardson Highway turns out to be perhaps the most beautiful stretch of road I have ever driven on. There is a jaw-dropping photo opportunity around every bend. I could have snapped hundreds of photos along the way, but lucky for you, I did not. Even so, I had way too many good ones to display here, and had to pare them down. Despite my best efforts, I still had too many to put in one post, and so have broken the Glenn Highway into two parts. Mostly, I will let the pictures do the talking, even thought they are not adequate to truly portray the magnificent scenery along the way.

I am pretty sure that this is Mt. Wrangell, seen from the Cesna on the flight out of McCarthy:

The Chitina airport, with our little red Toyata Matrix parked and waiting for us:A mighty glacier cuts throught the Chugach Mountains, to the south (left) of the Glenn Highway:

Scenery along the Glenn Highway:

Panoramic view from the eastern part of the Glenn Highway:

The Chugach are an impressive mountain range. Even the "settled" parts of this huge state are so vast!