Whittier, Alaska. The self-proclaimed “Western Gateway to the Prince William Sound,” which it is. I would also consider it our first stop on the Kenai Peninsula, but I’m not sure if it quite counts as part of the peninsula.

We left Anchorage, driving the Seward Highway Scenic Byway (literally the only way to go!) around Turnagain Arm and past the town of Girdwood to Portage Valley via the Portage Highway. (Remember, in Alaska, most “highways” are two-lane roads, sometimes dirt/gravel, sometimes rough, sometimes narrow). Along Portage Highway—a paved two-lane road—are nature trails, campgrounds, pullouts to view or fish on Portage Creek, views of Explorer, Middle, and Byron glaciers, and Portage Lake (formed by Portage Glacier, viewable from a boat or kayak) – all before arriving at the Whittier Tunnel.

We dry camped (no electric/water/sewer hookups) at Williwaw Campground. We walked and rode our bikes on the Trail of Blue Ice and hiked the trail to the Byron Glacier. We also did a boat tour on Portage Lake over to Portage Glacier. It was a breezy, cold, beautiful day with deceptive views. Even though the lake didn’t seem large, it was about a mile wide and, when we were “near” the glacier, we were a few hundred yards away! We saw a professional photographer on top of a large boulder at the bottom of the glacier, and he looked like a little ant! Alaska is full of these optical illusions.

As much as we enjoyed our stay, visiting pullouts and walking the trails in Portage Valley, we were really in that area to drive into Whittier. The ONLY way to get into Whittier by vehicle on land is through the 2.5 mile-long tunnel that is shared with trains. Not side-by-side, mind you, but by driving over the actual railroad tracks. It is the longest road and rail tunnel in North America, although there are much longer road and rail tunnels around the world. There is a timed system of traffic moving through the tunnel one way, with traffic moving through in the opposite direction 30 minutes later, and all traffic is stopped when a train is scheduled to go through in either direction. There is a fee to go through the tunnel. We did not take the Airstream, so we paid a regular vehicle fee of about $13.00 roundtrip.

There is not much to Whittier. Nestled among the Chugach mountains and easy access to Prince William Sound, it was deemed a good location for a secret military installation during World War II. The digging and construction of the tunnel began in 1941. Buildings were built, and a town was created. The Army pulled out in 1966, but by then the Port of Whittier had become a part of Alaska’s commercial fishing and tourist industries.

There are NO houses, except for maybe one or two “newish” log cabins set up on the outskirts of town along the water, most likely for the tourist season. The year-round residents (about 300) live in a small apartment complex on the edge of town near the shipping container yard or in a renovated condo building in the center of town. The condo building used to be housing for military personnel during the installation.

There is an area for container ships. There is a dock for cruise ships, but they only arrive during the summer and not daily. There is an active ferry between Whittier and Valdez that takes about 6 hours in one direction. It can take vehicles up to 25 feet, but any pets are required to stay in vehicles the entire time. So, those travelling with pets may choose to drive instead. And, of course, there is a huge train yard for cargo trains and passenger trains coming and going.

We walked through a pedestrian tunnel underneath the train tracks and train yard to walk around the town. We visited a small museum that is housed in the same building as the one and only grocery store in Whittier. The museum was well put-together with photos and artifacts from the creation of the tunnel to the development of the town and the army installation.

Although there are a few restaurants and gift shops along the harbor, they are closed during the winter months. We approached a young lady walking with her toddler son and asked if she lived in Whittier year round. The answer was yes! Her husband was originally from Girdwood (outside of Portage Valley on the Seward Highway), and he works with the Whittier/Valdez ferry. She used to live in North Carolina (what are the chances?) and continues to do remote work for a dance studio in Chapel Hill. They recently bought a condo in the condo building and are hoping the renovations are done by October so they can move in before winter hits.

Whittier is small, so we walked the entire town and along the Whittier Creek Trail (the back, mountain side of the town). Before leaving, we drove by the Buckner Building, part of the U.S. Army’s initial installation which is now in ruins, and we also drove down a gravel road for some beautiful mountain/glacier/water views.

The trip through the tunnel was worth the day trip into Whittier. Spending time on the other side in Portage Valley was equally, if not more, rewarding. Enjoy the video (above or at https://youtu.be/o06LGk3hZb8?si=MHVKwWYjgjz9rR5H) of our excursion!

For previous installments of our Alaska Roadtrip:

7) Catching Up … Parts of “Interior” Alaska

6) Denali National Park and a Peek at its Peak!

5) Driving the Dalton to the Arctic Circle

4) Summer Dog Mushing experience Iditarod racers Jeff and KattiJo Deeter of Black Spruce Dog Sledding

3) Driving the Alaska Highway

2) Banff National Park, the Icefields Parkway, and Jasper National Park

1) Alaska Roadtrip Installment 1 (Theodore Roosevelt National Park and more!)

Ack! I’m way behind on my posts! We have been moving a lot and living in the moment, enjoying Alaska and its scenery. I try to post pictures regularly on Instagram (@rivetingjourney-karen) and Facebook (Riveting Journey), but finding the time to write a blog and put together a video has not been easy. Carl will tell you that I have had plenty of time, but in my downtime I’ve chosen to read mindless novels instead of cracking open my laptop! Get ready for several posts over the next couple of weeks (wifi service and uploading permitted…)! (P.S. – The videos in this post are much shorter – about 5 minutes on one and 2 minutes on the other.)

Wasilla, Hatcher Pass, and Independence Mine

After our phenomenal glacier landing with Talkeetna Air (Denali National Park blog/video), we made our way south to the Wasilla/Palmer area. We enjoyed Wasilla’s Independence Day parade and mayor’s festival (free hot dogs, drinks, and entertainment!). We visited with some relatives in Palmer who picked up the hitch sway bar Karen found on Facebook Marketplace after we lost one on the Dalton Highway north of Fairbanks a few weeks earlier. And we took a day to explore Hatcher Pass and Independence Mine. The Independence Mine, now a State Historical Park, was a gold mining operation from approximately 1934 until about 1950. How in the world did people find these places and build huge mining operations that lasted just a couple of decades?

Eagle River and Anchorage

We then made our way to Eagle River and Anchorage to fuel up, stock up on groceries, and do laundry. A friend we met in southern California in early 2021, Mary DeSpain who is also a Travel Advisor (book your cruises with her!), is from the Anchorage area. She not only “virtually” introduced us to her friends, Phyllis and Brad, who live in Eagle River; she also offered her RV pad behind her house in Anchorage for moochdocking. We met her son and daughter-in-law, and it was a perfect spot to explore Anchorage and take care of chores. They live not too far from Kincaid Park, which has the start (or end) of a nice, paved bike trail. It is also along a bay that is part of the Turnagain Arm with nice views. Mary suggested we eat at Moose’s Tooth, and we did – delicious pizza. It is so popular that we had a 30-minute wait at 1:30pm on a Friday afternoon, and it is a pretty big restaurant!

Our favorite thing we did in Anchorage was watch seaplanes take off and land at Lake Spenard and Lake Hood next to the Anchorage International Airport. It is quite an active seaplane base. We also drove to Flat Top Trailhead, a steep and winding road up a mountain to a … wait for it … flat top! It had beautiful views of Anchorage and the surrounding area. Unfortunately, it is quite popular on a beautiful, sunny day and there was NO parking available. So we stopped on the side of the road to snap a few photos and headed back down.

After spending several weeks in Alaska with relatively little traffic, the traffic around Anchorage was a shock to our systems! And, believe me, it is NOTHING like the traffic in and around Raleigh, or on I-40, or anywhere that is over-populated. We have become accustomed to driving on two-lane “highways” that have little traffic. “Rush hour” would be when 5-7 vehicles pass us in a 20-30 minute timeframe!

Next  up … Whittier and Portage Glacier …

For previous installments of our Alaska Roadtrip:

6) Denali National Park and a Peek at its Peak!

5) Driving the Dalton to the Arctic Circle

4) Summer Dog Mushing experience Iditarod racers Jeff and KattiJo Deeter of Black Spruce Dog Sledding

3) Driving the Alaska Highway

2) Banff National Park, the Icefields Parkway, and Jasper National Park

1) Alaska Roadtrip Installment 1 (Theodore Roosevelt National Park and more!)

Rugged Romance. Endless wilderness. Those phrases float into my consciousness when I think of our trip to Denali National Park. I’m not sure why. Mountains and rivers and finding wild animals in their natural habitat tend to lure me into some alternate universe of existence. And Alaska, the largest and newest state in the U.S., is remote and mostly untouched. Alaska’s population is less than 750,000!

Denali National Park was established in 1917 to protect a population of Dall Sheep. Initially, it was comprised of about 2 million acres, but was expanded to over 6 million acres during President Carter’s administration and is now considered the third largest in the U.S. The two largest national parks (Wrangell-St. Elias and Gates of the Arctic) are also in Alaska. In fact, I think Alaska has at least 7 of the top 10 national parks, in terms of size.

Denali NP has one main road that is 92 miles long. At the end of the road is Kantishna, the only place in the park that is still considered private property. It used to be an old gold mining camp but now has a lodge and a small airstrip. Since the 1960s, there has been an active landslide (called the Pretty Rocks landslide) along this main road near mile marker (MM) 45.4 and, in 2021 it finally displaced the road, blocking access to anything beyond. Construction and repair are estimated to be complete by 2026.

There are six campgrounds in Denali NP, but only three are suitable for RVs. One of the six, Wonder Lake, is closed for now because of its location at MM 85.9, beyond the landslide. We stayed at Riley Creek Campground at the front the park. It was large with roomy sites and had good cell service.

The park has a main Visitor Center that shows a couple of different films about the park. It includes a museum, and park rangers are available to answer questions and help people with backcountry hiking. (The park also has another Visitor Center at MM 66, currently inaccessible.) Near the entrance, there is a bus depot, a mercantile, a bus stop, a train depot, a couple of gift shops, a café, an air strip, a science and learning center, and sled dog kennels.

The park has an active shuttle system, of which we took advantage. Personal vehicles are not allowed beyond MM 15 unless they have a reservation at one of the campgrounds beyond there. The shuttle buses operate from the front of the park to MM 43 — the road is closed here because of the Pretty Rocks landslide and construction.

Denali (previously known as Mt. McKinley), meaning “the Tall One,” is the highest mountain peak in North America at 20,310 feet. It is the center of the mountain range in Denali NP and only about 30% of the people who visit the area actually see its peak because clouds just LOVE to hug the top of it. In fact, those who do see the peak see it at viewpoints outside of the park boundaries. It is probably best viewable inside the park at Kantishna (MM 92), but that is not accessible at this time.

We were two of the fortunate ones to see its peak and are now part of the 30% club!

We didn’t have nearly enough time at Denali NP with just four days there. It was a busy place! Not only were there plenty of RVers and tent campers, there were bus loads and train loads of people coming into the park from cruises and other forms of travel.

When we first arrived, we rode our bikes on a multi-use path to the Visitor Center to get a feel for the place. We watched the movies, grabbed a map, checked out the gift shop, and learned about the shuttle system. In the evening, we walked to the amphitheater in our campground for a nature presentation with a ranger, which was very interesting as she talked about the women “behind” the men who did some of the early scientific research in the park.

On day 2, we rode our bikes to the bus stop near the Visitor Center and took the shuttle to the dog sledding demo. Dog sledding is a part of the history and fabric of Alaska. In Denali NP, it is a necessity in the winter months. The dogs are called “freight dogs” as they are larger and stronger than the Alaskan Huskies that are racing dogs we saw earlier in Fairbanks. The freight dogs transport supplies and materials throughout the park during the winter months. On a ranger-led nature walk, we learned that all the materials for a swinging foot bridge we crossed were brought to that area by the sled dog team!

In the afternoon, we took a shuttle from our campground to Savage River at MM 15 to hike the Savage River Loop Trail. A cool, breezy, partly sunny day. It was beautiful.

On day 3, we signed up for the Tundra Wilderness Tour, which is a bus tour of the park back to MM 43, stopping for any spotted wildlife. The road turns to hardpacked dirt/gravel at MM 15, making the experience feel more rugged and remote. However, there are A LOT of hardpacked dirt/gravel roads in Alaska, and we have been on many of them. Typically, the Tundra Wilderness Tour would go back to MM 82, but because of the Pretty Rocks landslide, it is currently limited to MM 43. The tour guide was kind and engaging and stopped for moose and caribou. We did not see any bears or Dall Sheep. Another cool, breezy, partly cloudy day, but we loved going deeper into the park.

In the evening, we went to another ranger program in our campground.

On our last full day at the park, we participated in a ranger-led nature hike in another section of the park not far from the Visitor Center. He showed us where the original entrance to the park was and led us back to a couple of bridges over Riley Creek, one being the swinging foot bridge I mentioned earlier. After lunch, we took a shuttle back to Savage River. The plan was to enjoy the scenery while drinking hot chocolate, but we soon talked ourselves into hiking a portion of the Savage Alpine Trail. Of course, the worst part of the Savage Alpine Trail was the end of it near Savage River where we were. It was a dicey, narrow, extremely steep section of trail, and I’m not sure why we even tried to attempt it. We weren’t prepared to do a four-mile hike (the length of this trail), and we soon learned that the section we climbed up and then back down was the worst part of the trail. When we go back, we will do the entire trail, but we will ONLY go up this section ONCE, not up then back down!

When we left Denali NP, we drove down to Byers Lake Campground. Although full of potholes (all of the Alaska state-run campgrounds we went into had hundreds of horrible potholes), it was a good location to try to see Denali’s peak from a couple of viewpoints. And it was only an hour from Talkeetna, from where we did a flightseeing/glacier landing excursion into Denali NP.

We lucked out! We woke up to a gloriously clear day with blue sky and very few clouds. I knew that our chances of seeing Denali’s peak were HIGH! Sure enough, as we drove to Talkeetna, we stopped at two different viewpoints and saw the peak. There was a small bank of clouds hovering in front of the mountain, but the peak was visible! And our flightseeing tour was breathtaking. We could not have picked a better day.

I could not tire of seeing a snow-covered mountain range from above. Pristine, untouched snow. Crystal-clear blue pools of snow melt. Craggy, rocky mountain sides. Glaciers carving the landscape. It was a feast for the eyes and the soul.

We landed on Ruth Glacier and stepped out onto the soft snow, our feet sinking down and slipping around. Peaceful. Bright. Crisp. I don’t want to be a mountain climber, but I can understand the appeal of being in an area not many people traverse.

What we saw from the ground versus what we saw from the air … we truly got an understanding of how massive this park is and how inaccessible it is to the non-mountain-climbing, non-backcountry hiking, non-glacier-landing, non-dog-sledding person.

We want to come back to the park and get back to MM 92. We want to explore other hiking trails. We want to feast our eyes on the snow-capped mountain range and maybe traipse across virgin snow in snowshoes.

We have fallen in love with Denali’s untouched beauty and the rugged romance of it all.

Enjoy the pictorial video (above)!

For previous installments of our Alaska Roadtrip:

5) Driving the Dalton to the Arctic Circle

4) Summer Dog Mushing experience Iditarod racers Jeff and KattiJo Deeter of Black Spruce Dog Sledding

3) Driving the Alaska Highway

2) Banff National Park, the Icefields Parkway, and Jasper National Park

1) Alaska Roadtrip Installment 1 (Theodore Roosevelt National Park and more!)