Day 71: Seward to Girdwood

June 24, 2014

We awake to a bright sunny day today – sure would have been nice to have this weather yesterday but – oh well – we prefer good weather for travel days as well. Today we moved from Seward back toward Anchorage to Girdwood in preparation for Donna and Barry's departure tomorrow. We are currently at Williwaw National Forest Service Campground. It had been recommended by several people we know so thought we would give it a try. We really like it. Well separated sites, quiet, look out the windows at glaciers. Listen to a creek. Very nice! The only downside is very slow Verizon Wireless internet connection so it takes a while to upload pictures.

Middle Glacier as seen from the campground

After setting up at the new location we went into Girdwood to check it out. There is a very nice ski resort there and we road the tram 2,300 feet up the mountain. From there you have panoramic views of a large portion of the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet, glaciers, and the Chugach mountains.

Alyeska Resort and the trail up the mountain

Three glaciers seen from the tram

Turnagain Arm at low tide

While riding up the tram operator mentioned the bore tide in the Cook Inlet and suggested we go view that this afternoon. We hurried down the mountain and headed for the suggested viewing point. A bore tide is an abrupt rise of tidal water just after low tide, moving rapidly landward, formed by a flood tide surging into a constricted inlet such as the Turnagain Arm. The wave/wall of water can be as high as 6 feet. People in Alaska have started surfing the wave. The wave today was relatively small. It takes a minus 3-5 foot low tide to make the large wave. The water is about 36 degrees so a wet suit is required and a dry suit is recommended. It was quite interesting to see this small wave of water just rapidly proceed up the inlet. There was one surfer who successfully road the wave for over 2 miles. It was really fun to watch.

 

 

 

We then returned to the rig, ate dinner and then hiked part of the Blue Ice Trail. Very nice hike. We plan to stay here for several days and will get our bikes out and do some riding on these nice bike trails.

Donna took this really nice picture of a common rosefinch while we were hiking