August 9 From Seward to to Valdez via Ferry (Prince William Sound) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| On the 9th we drove from Seward to Whittier, and then took the ferry from Whittier to Valdez. You have to take a tunnel from Portage Lake to Whittier, which up until a couple months ago was only open to trains. At Portage Lake, we saw our first iceberg (actually, I don't think they're called icebergs when they're this small). Later on the same day, we saw many, many more. | This is the town of Whittier. We had some time to kill before taking the ferry to Valdez, so we walked around. It was super windy, but a very beautiful day. Highly unusual this time of year. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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  The building in the background was an old military building that was built to house troops in WW2. It's currently abandoned. |   The ferry trip was stupendous. Lots of people bundled up and sat on the observation deck, where they had lounge chairs. The ferry actually has a naturalist on board from the park service, and stops at various locations to give explanations about what we're seeing. | It seemed as though every slope had a dozen waterfalls cascading down the side. Very beautiful/ |   This is one of the glaciers we saw from the ferry |   Tom and my dad. |   Looks like some great spots for kayaking. |   Those brown spots you see is colony of sea lions. | And even more sea lions... |   I thought the color of the water turned out great here. And check out those caves and arches in the rocks! | The beginning of the icefields! |   Looks like a little bear, maybe? |     The boat had to maneuver pretty well to avoid the ice. We only hit one piece that I heard...everybody made Titanic jokes! |     And here we're arriving in Valdez. You can see the pipeline terminal off in the distance. | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||