Picture this: A town that is about an hour south of Anchorage, right on the Prince William Sound, full of glaciers, a scenic highway (the one and only highway in Alaska) to get there, and the population is 220. Surprise, it’s Whittier! By the way, I’m not kidding about the population fact. Ah yes, I forgot the most important detail – to get to Whittier, all cars and trains must go through a ONE-LANE tunnel through a mountain (you are in the tunnel for about 6 minutes), which is on a schedule because it can only handle one-way traffic. That means if you miss the 15 minute period to go from the highway to Whittier, you have to wait until the next hour. This also means if you miss the last opening out of Whittier at 11:30pm, you better start looking at the one hotel Whittier has.
We decided to go to this lovely little town to go on a glacier boat! We were able to travel around the Prince William Sound for about 5 hours and see multiple glaciers, wildlife, and mountains. We learned that glaciers look blue because the ice is so dense, only blue light has enough energy to get through. As for wildlife, we saw otters, porpoises, bald eagles (!), sea otters, and seagul-type birds.
If you ever get the chance to do something like this, DO IT! The experience was worth every penny. So was the Alaskan salmon they served for lunch, if I do say so myself.
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| The entrance to the Whittier tunnel |
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| The Alaska state flag |
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| Surprise Glacier |
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| Go blue! |
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