Thursday, August 16, 2012
We went back to the Talkeetna Roadhouse for breakfast. I had a blueberry pancake the size of a manhole cover.
We had arranged to take a once-in-a-lifetime Denali flightseeing tour with K2 Aviation out of Talkeetna. The weather this morning was not as spectacular as the last 2 days. We went to the office at the Talkeetna State Airport. The pilots had just taken a flight to find out the current conditions. They reported back that cloud cover was keeping them from getting up to the height of the glaciers. The summit would likely not be visible on our planned time flight. They couldn’t guarantee they’d even be able to land on a glacier. We took them up on their offer to refund the flight. If we were going to spend all that money on the flight, we wanted to see all that we could see.
We drove down to Anchorage and went back to REI today to get more stakes for the tent and get me a sleeping bag liner which will add about 20 degrees more of warmth.
We drove to the Ship Canal to see the fisherman trying to catch the salmon going to spawn.
We then went to the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail.
After that we drove down Seward Highway to Turnagain Arm to watch the bore tide from Beluga Point.
We arrived a little early according to the tide table. There were beautiful blue skies over the Cook Inlet near Anchorage, but overcast further down into Turnagain Arm. It was really windy here and cold.
We decided to drive a few more miles further down Seward Highway to the next bore tide viewpoint called Bird Point. This one was within a park so we would have to pay to park here. We climbed up the steps to the shelter to see what we could see. There were a few people waiting under the shelter.
We decided we liked Beluga Point better so we drove back up there. The parking spaces had cleared out. Joe rechecked the tide table. It had already come! Did we already miss this large tidal wave? Maybe it past Bird Point while we were climbing back to the car. We started to drive back south hoping we’d see it from the car and could pull over. We ran back up to Bird Point lookout. As we arrived a group of older couples pointed out the small consistent wave across the inlet. We didn’t miss it after all!
A bore tide is a tidal phenomenon in which the leading edge of the incoming tide forms a wave of water that travels up a river or narrow bay against the direction of the river or bay’s current.
Pictures don’t really do it justice. It just looks like a wave. I’m sorry you’re just going to have to go see it for yourself. It wasn’t as big of a wave as I was expecting or as fast moving. The high winds out of the mountains by Portage may have lowered its altitude.
We drove up to the Double Musty Inn in Girdwood for dinner. We got there just after 5pm and debated driving around the ski resort town for a bit, but decided to go ahead and go in. We are sure glad we did. There was a line out the door. They don’t take reservations. Within minutes every table in the huge place we taken. We had a nice spot in a solarium. I took everyone’s recommendations to try their French peppercorn filet and it was amazing!
After dinner we drove up to check out Alyeskan Ski Resort.
It was getting late and more overcast so we decided to head to our campsite for the night, Williwaw Campground near Portage.
As we were driving down Seward Highway along Turnagain Arm, I looked out the window of the car and saw beluga whales surfacing about 20 yards off shore! Joe probably thought I was completely crazy saying I saw whales, but we turned into the next parking viewpoint area, almost a mile south of where I saw them. We watched for a long awhile, somehow convincing another couple that we had seen whales and we weren’t just stopping to photograph the beautiful view of the sun beams piercing the sky.
They are there somewhere. We saw their blow hole spray from back at the car so we walked on the shoulder closer to where they were. I don’t know how long we waited but they must be able to hold their breath for a LONG time.
A train rode by as we walked back to the car.
The sky was just so pretty tonight as we reached the eastern end of Turnagain Arm.
We reached our campsite at Williwaw Campground in the Chugach National Forest, once again in bear country. We passed by 2 glaciers on the upper mountains above the campground. It was rather cold and pouring rain at this point. We setup the tent as fast as possible. We played cards in the tent for a few hours before going to bed.
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