We moved on from Williwaw Campground, and headed north back up to the Seward Highway. We saw a sign for another Chugach National Forest Campground called Granite Creek. So we decided to loop through and see what we could see. We liked that it was further away from the road so we wouldn't hear any road noise. The one prior to that was very close to the road called Black Bear.
We drove down into the Granite Creek Campground on a Thursday. It was pretty full already. We found a beautiful empty site as we were looping through. We drove over to the kiosk to get an envelope. This was cash only, no credit card machine. As we looped back to get our desired campsite, lo and behold somebody else was already backing into it! Drat!!!
Lesson learned, next time leave me at the campsite and let Steve drive back around the loop to get the pay envelope. That way I can hold it.
Well, we drove back around the loop and there was only one other site available and it was actually the camp host site. We looked online and it said it was still available. So evidently they hadn't hired a camp host for the season? So we backed in and took the site and then walked over for the envelope to pay. We paid right away for three nights Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights so we were secured here for the weekend. It was a gorgeous site right next to the water!!!
Granite Creek was flowing swiftly. We figured it's from all of the melt off the mountains because of the extremely warm weather that the interior of the state is experiencing this week. They even had high heat index warnings for Fairbanks in the '80s! Keep in mind, the people in Alaska don't even own air conditioners. They never need them. So there were weather warnings out for the elderly and also to let people know to stay hydrated and to get indoors if it gets too hot.
We were further down near the ocean so we were in cooler temperatures. But the melting waters up on the mountains were churning down through every little creek and river in the valleys.
(We would later regret taking this campsite)
The concessionaire that manages the national forest campgrounds in this area stopped by. She said that she does have a host hired for the season, but she only comes on the weekends. So Mon-Thurs this site is open. We offered to leave the campsite on Friday morning, but she said no, that was fine. She would have the host to stay up the road at the Black Bear site. Then we could be comfortable where we were at for the entire weekend that we already paid for.
The view up through the trees was beautiful, with snow-capped mountains around us. The babbling and churning creek next to us was a pleasant feature (or so we thought...)
Nick snoozed for an afternoon nap.
We settled out on our lawn chairs and watched the water churning by. See that log on the other shore? More about that later.
We enjoyed the day. We cooked out chicken on the grill. Steve had the solar panels going to top off our batteries.
Little Nick hangs out close by, he is always on his leash. We tie him right to our lawn chairs and he hangs out underneath. We sat out in the sunshine and it got pretty hot during the day. Inside the camper it was well over 80°!
The first night was very relaxing. We could hear the gurgling and churning of the river right near the back of our camper. We happened to be the only campsite that was low along the bank of the river. All of the rest of the sites were up much higher.
There was a father with two cute little boys that was trying to find a spot to fish with the rushing water. Right next to our campsite was a little cove with kind of a whirling eddy of a pool. Steve invited them to come in and fish from there, where it was safer for the little boys.
The little guys were about 3 years old and 5 years old and each one had on a little backpack and had a Snoopy fishing pole. I did not take any pictures of them because I didn't have any permission to do so. But they were pretty darn cute.
They lost interest in about 10 minutes. But in the meantime I had put together two little Ziploc bags of s'mores kits. Honey Graham crackers now come in small packages of about 6 or 8 crackers to keep them fresher. I put a pack of each into a Ziploc for each little boy, along with a full size Hershey's chocolate bar and about eight marshmallows. I asked the father discreetly if they were allowed to each have a treat. He agreed, so I got to give them each a little some s'more kit to take with them. I think the little guys were more excited about the s'mores than they were about fishing!!!
By Friday afternoon, we noticed that the river was getting higher and higher. If you notice in this photo next to Steve, the log that was there the day before is now almost completely submerged!
I made a little video of what I was seeing...
It was about 10:00 p.m., but still very light out because it is The Summer Solstice. The sun wasn't even going to set until after midnight here.
We were getting ready to go to bed but something just kept bothering me about the river. I looked back out and it was even higher in the last hour than it had been before!!!
Since we were the lowest campsite to the shore, we would be the first ones that get flooded out. I didn't want to be waking up every hour looking out at the levels on the river. Aa I said, all of the other campsites were situated much higher.
I went on the USGS government site to check on the height of the river up above at the nearest monitoring station. I could set an alert that it would buzz us if we got above a certain level. But I didn't want to trust that either. It looked like it was only being monitored once or twice a day for a reading. If more of the snow melt came rushing down this far, the river would rise before anybody would notice?
It had rapidly raised, and it was still going higher.
IT WAS TIME FOR US TO LEAVE!
It only takes a few minutes to pull in our slides and gather our gear. By 11:15 p.m. we were on the road driving up to higher ground along the highway. Just a little way down the highway is a pull off wayside that we are able to overnight in. And that's just what we did.
By midnight, we were curled up in our bed and trying to get to sleep. My anxiety level was relaxing and it only took a little while to fall asleep.
We woke up to the sound of pouring rain on the roof. That's just going to add to the flooding situation by having rainfall on top of the snow melt, adding to the levels of the rivers. Yes, we did make the right call to leave.
We were safe and high and dry.
We looked out of our windows, and we saw a guy parked right next to us overnight. He had a boat! He was evidently sleeping in his boat because of the ladder that we saw going up the side. So I guess he didn't trust any levels in the rivers either? Lol
Here is the YouTube video that goes along with today's blog:
I left off from the last blog by coming out of the Anderson Tunnel on our way back from Whittier.
We drove up to a scenic overlook, and gazed down upon Portage Lake. Even up at this height it was very pleasant and warm and we didn't even need a jacket.
We were literally only 7 miles away from the windy and freezing atmosphere of Whittier. Now we had our jackets off and we were enjoying the sunshine and the warmth.
I used my camera and zoomed in on this waterfall way over on the other side of the lake.
I believe this is Portage Glacier around the corner, and there was a tour boat company down below that would take out ferry boats full of tourists to glide over by the Glacier and the waterfalls. We watched two tour buses that came in and everybody loaded up into the boat.
Like I said, it was so nice and pleasant there. Nicholas posed for a regal mountain photo of an Elegant Doggy.
Then he clearly told us he was tired of all this posing and it was time to relax in the sunshine.
We left that lookout area and drove a little bit further down the road, maybe another half of a mile. There was a really nice campground called Williwaw Campground that was in between that glacier and Byron Glacier.
There were some very private sites available and we found a really good one in the far loop that was facing the glacier.
It was beautiful and peaceful. With our America the Beautiful Golden Access Pass, we got it for half price for $11.50 a night.
The bright white snow glaring in the sunshine actually made us feel like we had to put on sunglasses.
Out came the lawn chairs, and it was time to relax. The birds were singing all around us and we heard no other noises other than the distant gurgling of the stream and a rushing waterfall way far off in the distance on the Byron Glacier. Yes, we could hear a waterfall from that far away.
While we were cooking dinner, it was time to break out a couple adult beverages. This is my last bottle of my "Two Buck Chuck" wine from Trader Joe's! (Charles Shaw label sold exclusively at Trader Joe's).
I'm going to have to start shopping for and trying some Alaskan wine. Steve is drinking Alaskan beer. That is his Uncle Dunkle beer from the Denali Brewing Company, made in Talkeetna, Alaska.
We spent three wonderful days in this campground, totally enjoying the serenity and quiet and sleeping in peace.
We walked on The Trail of Blue Ice for a ways and took in the scenery. It goes on for many miles, but we just walked the short section of it that went around our campground and over to the fish viewing platform.
Through the swamp, and alongside of a babbling brook was this wonderfully built boardwalk. It really made it nice to walk amongst the trees and alongside the brook with ease.
Across the walkway bridge over the Williwaw River. From here we could finally see the waterfall that we've been hearing all the while from our campsite!
I zoomed in with the 1200 mm lens on my camera and I could actually photograph the waterfall far far away on the mountainside.
The waterfall is actually way up this mountain that is over Steve's shoulder.
There's a big fish viewing platform for when the salmon are running. This is a nice depiction of all the types of salmon that are native to the Alaskan waterways.
We wandered among the displays and the storyboards, learning about the area and the life cycles of the salmon.
Beautiful tiny flowers are in bloom all over in the woods. There are wild roses, lupine, bluebells and some little tiny white flowers we aren't sure what they are. These pink ones smell especially fragrant.
We walked along in beautiful sunshine weather in the 70s. Hard to believe just a little ways away there are huge drifts of snow. This curled one at the top we said might become an avalanche!
Yep, it's kind of fun to play "tourist"... And we've been doing that for the last 2 months.
We thought these were interesting fire pits up here in some of the National Forest campgrounds. It's a l-shaped piece of heavy iron that creates a windbreak with a grate on top and a triangular shape. The grate pivots up out of the way if you don't need it. I think it would be rather cozy to sit around, because it would direct the heat over towards your legs in your lawn chairs if you were sitting on the open side of it.
Back to the campsite:
We cooked up the other half of our slab of salmon from Valdez. It was tender, flakey and just fell apart with the touch of a fork.
This next video clip didn't make it into the bigger You Tube link below... So I am going to try to attach it here:
All too soon, Steve said let's throw in our gear and pack it up and hit the road again...
We headed back up towards the Seward Highway and drove alongside of the Turnagain Arm by Portage.
We wanted to refill our freshwater tank by Girdwood again, and have a chance to watch a "bore tide" come into the Turnagain Arm.
What Are Bore Tides?
The bore tide is a rush of seawater that returns to a shallow and narrowing inlet from a broad bay. Bore tides come in after extreme minus low tides created by the full or new moon.
It was a gorgeous day, so we drove up near Beluga Point to watch the tide come in.
This is a strange phenomenon where the tide comes in so fast, it makes a long curling wave as it comes in. During full or new moons, it's even higher. Some people go out and use a surfboard to ride the small wave!!
It's hard to show the rapid increase of the tide in photos, so you will have to watch on the video below.
After leaving Bird Creek and getting propane, we headed down the Seward Highway, planning to stop at Girdwood to fill up our fresh water tank.
The scenery was beautiful along the way. I just can't stop taking pictures of the gorgeous scenery as we fly by on the road. Are there ever too many photos?
Seeing the ice and snow on top of these mountains is just so unusual when we are having such summer-like weather down below on the ground. We just don't have things like that in Wisconsin.
We watched as the tide was mostly out on the Turnagain Arm. There was a lot of smooth flat sandy areas.
Locals know to not go out there at all. But crazy tourists think they can get down there and walk around. There can be sinkholes or collapsing sections because of the rapid movement of the tide coming in and going out. Nothing is stable on the bed of the Turnagain Arm.
We twisted and turned our way along the edge of the mountain ledge where they have chiseled away to make the road and the railroad tracks have clearance to get all the way down towards Girdwood and onwards to Seward. At least there are guard rails here!
Once we reached Girdwood, it's a very fancy community by the Alyeskin Lodge and fancy ski resorts. We were told back behind the city hall, next to the fire department, is a marked faucet of potable water for people to use and fill their tanks.
Sure enough, we found it! We were able to fill up our freshwater tank to the top before we headed back to one and only gas station in town.
Right next door we saw the sign that said "bakery"! We went in, hoping for fresh baked bread and maybe some hamburger buns. Nope. All they had were things like sweet rolls and cookies and bars. I had to drag Steve out of there. Once we got back to the motorhome, he suggested popping into the gas station to see if they had bread and buns?
Sure enough, they did!
While I was putting those away he said he was going to make a quick detour over to that bakery again. My mistake, I let him go alone...
He came back with a sheepish grin on his face and four packages in his arms!!! He said that he cannot be trusted in a bakery unattended.
He had two huge cinnamon rolls, (his favorite of course) that were so big we had to chop them in half to share between us for coffee. Then in the other containers he bought these two humongous brownies that were about four or five inches across. We had to cut them up into quarters and they were so rich you could barely eat one quarter. Those lasted four days, and actually we just ate the last piece tonight as I write this blog.
We stowed away the baked goods and headed on down toward the intersection of Portage Glacier Road. This put us in the direction of Whittier to the south. We would come back this way and continue west on the Seward Highway after we explored the area to the south.
We drove along, admiring the beautiful scenery as we worked our way through the valley. We drove through two National Forest Campgrounds on the way. We earmarked them as possible places to stay on the way back, Black Bear and Williwaw. Our America the Beautiful Federal Senior Access Pass will allow us to stay there for half price.
But first, we had to drive beyond them and head towards Whittier. We had something exciting to do... See that straight blue line going on a diagonal from Portage Lake to Whittier?
The Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel—the longest (2.5 miles) highway tunnel in North America, and the first designed for -40 Fahrenheit temperatures and 150 mph winds!
The one-lane tunnel must be shared by cars and trains traveling in both directions, and it usually needs to be aired out in between trips (with jet turbine ventilation, another first!). This unique design that enables a single lane of traffic to travel directly over the railroad track saved tens of millions of dollars over the cost of constructing a new tunnel.
Yep, we were going to go through the tunnel! Two and a half miles long underneath a huge mountain. It only recently opened to automobile traffic, it originally had been built for the military, and then for trains only. It was later redesigned to allow cars to drive on the same tracks as the train. It's only a single lane wide. So we have to take turns...
Tickets can be bought online in advance, or you can buy them once you are there from a toll booth. We were charged $13 for an RV without towing anything behind it. You only need to pay for a ticket to get through the tunnel into Whittier. It's free to come back...
We were told to take our place in line in Lane Number 3. First, they started taking the big tour buses through. Next, they were taking the cars. Motorhomes and people pulling fishing boats were last.
We had to wait until the light turned green. All vehicles are spaced apart in the tunnel and you're not allowed to speed up or catch up to the other person ahead of you. I think it helps keep down on the exhaust emissions.
NOW IT WAS OUR TURN!
As soon as we got in, some people were backed up already. We paused and waited and let them pull forward more until it was time for us to evenly space ourselves apart.
We went deeper and deeper into the bowels of the mountain. Thoughts of having an earthquake crossed my mind, and we would be inside when it would happen. I know that's crazy thinking, but it does go through your mind.
We were happy to see that the tunnels were well lit. There are sections of spaces where if you had to pull off in an emergency I suppose you could to one side. Otherwise you were to just keep on going and not stop. The walls changed from smooth concrete over to craggy chopped up rock surfaces.
It seemed like forever, but it really was only 2.5 miles at 25 miles an hour. So that comes out to approximately 6 minutes. I have the entire time speeded up 10X on the video link down below on the YouTube section that goes with this blog.
YES!
WE COULD SEE THE LIGHT
AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL!!
AHHHHHH!!! Greenness. Daylight. Fresh air. For people who are claustrophobic, this must feel like a big relief to get to the end.
Okay, now we are in Whittier. Now what? We were suddenly bathed in icy cold and windy conditions! The air temperature had dropped almost 20° from one side of the mountain to the other.
Everything was damp and moist from the sea air as well as blasting winds of 30 to 40 mph. We had known by looking at a map to first pull over to the left there was a vacant parking area near a small camping place by the airstrip. We aimed to go there first and get our bearings.
It was really very, very pretty. But it was also very very cold! I hopped out to take some pictures, but Steve opted to stay inside with the dog. He had actually helped me open and close the camper door to get in and out because the wind would have ripped it right out of my hands!
It was very pretty along the shoreline, but we really couldn't get out and enjoy it. We had planned to make a picnic lunch and sit outside. Instead we cooked and ate inside --- and just looked out of the windows. We could see the rest of Whittier off in the distance.
We started up the motorhome and drove the rest of the way into the small town of Whittier. Here was the train on it's way to go through the tunnel. We had seen the same train going past us at Bird Creek. This one had cars with tourists in it.
We drove up into town. There's not a lot to the town other than a very large harbor and a few small businesses. I think one restaurant and a bait shop. Really not a lot to see other than this huge unusual building in the middle of town.
This is called the Begich Towers. About 85% to 90% of the residents of the entire town live in this building! It has condo units and some are rented apartments. It has everything in one building including a grocery store, post office, medical clinic, police station etc Then there is a tunnel that goes through to the school next door for the children. They go through the tunnel so they don't have to walk outside in the winter.
A little further into town there were some newer apartment buildings, but there really weren't any residences or neighborhoods or subdivisions. Just the two streets in town and the harbor.
The town of Whittier, Alaska, is known for having nearly the entire population living in a single apartment building.
The building is called Begich Towers, a 14-story apartment complex that houses about 90% of the town's residents (total: 272). This has earned Whittier the nickname of a "town under one roof".
The building, originally constructed as an army barracks, now serves as a cozy condominium featuring a post office, general store, police station, laundromat, health clinic, mayor's office, and a heated indoor pool.
Whittier, Alaska is accessible only by air or through a single-lane tunnel that stretches over two miles through neighboring Maynard Mountain. The town's weather conditions can be harsh during winter, making the Begich Towers a convenient and practical living solution for the residents.
In addition to the Begich Towers, there is a second condo building in the town where the remaining residents live. The town's school and gym are located in a separate structure but are connected to the Begich Towers by a tunnel, allowing for easy access during the winter months..
Up behind the town is this huge abandoned building, that is full of asbestos. It is called the Buckner Building. It was part of the military base that was here that established in the area. It's no longer used but they can't do anything with the building other than possibly tear it down. We drove up past it just to eyeball it. Some people get out and goof around in there, but I think it's pretty dangerous.
We drove down along the harbor. There weren't many people around. We saw a few parking lots full of boats in dry dock. And a lot more of them parked in the harbor. We were told there was one shop that sold fresh seafood, but it was closed at the time we were there. We were thinking about adding a few more things to our freezer now that we had space. Oh well, plenty of towns along the Oceanside on the Kenai Peninsula that we can get seafood from yet.
We drove the entire loop around town twice. It's only a couple blocks long. So then we decided there really wasn't much more we wanted to see. We certainly didn't want to camp there in the super strong windy conditions and the icy cold air.
We hopped back up into the tunnel and headed right back through the mountain!!!
We got out on the other side and took the first left to drive back by Portage Glacier and the lake. We were now on the protected side of the mountain. Everything was warm again!!!
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