Day 8-Whittier & Return

The Alaska Railroad Trip to Anchorage

Today ends our cruise experience. We disembarked the ship very early in Whittier, about 6:45 am, and immediately boarded the Alaska Railroad for our trip to Anchorage to pcik up our flight back to Chicago.

The Alaska Railroad provides a very scenic ride for the breathtaking journey from Whittier to Anchorage. The trip takes about 2 hours and 20 minutes and includes mountain views, a 2.5 mile tunnel (that is closed one day each year for people to walk and bike through it.) as well as stream-side views.

The ride is a must to experience, and goes far too fast. On our trip we saw bald eagles, mountain sheep, salmon and beautiful vistas throughout. The seating is in 4-seat table settings so that you can chat as well as take in all the scenery of Alaska.

Upon arrival in Anchorage, we had lots of time to spend before our 10 pm red-eye to Chicago's OHare Airport. First we did a little shopping and explored downtown Anchorage which seemed to have lots of souvenir shops and restaurants. All in all it was very tourist oriented.

Anchorage is a town of over 250,000 residents and is one of the largest cities in terms of size (square miles) in the world. It is also a very fast-growing city. Our 50-minutes bus tour of the city with the 4th Avenue Theater's Trolley Tour took us around town with an amusing narration from a long-time resident. It included a visit to the airport area, which includes the world's largest marina airport for float planes. We saw hundreds of float planes in the docks just like a boat marina.

The Anchorage airport is quite modern and offers the typical amenities of major airports around the country.

Day 7-College Fjord

View of Harvard Glacier in College Fjord

Our last day of crusing was spent in the area of College Fjord. An area which is comprised of what was once twelve separate glaciers named after American universities. Six were named after female student universities and six after men's universities. Today several of the glaciers have retreated and are barely visible due to melting. The ones that remain, though, are quite amazing. During our cruise into the fjord, we passed numerous pieces of ice, mini-icebergs of a sort, though some were likely thousands of pounds and as big as a Volkswagon.

Day 6-Glacier Bay

Ship Passengers View Glacier Bay's Sights

Today we spent the day at sea. Our ship cruised in and out of the Glacier Bay National Park. Park rangers boarded our ship and provided additional narrative to our visual treat of the many glaciers in the park.

Unfortunately, there were no whales visible during our time in the bay.

Day 5-Skagway

Sally & Friend at Musher Camp

Today we made the last port city stop on our 7-day cruise. The town of Skagway was our kick-off point for a train ride up the mountain as well as a visit to a Sled Dog Musher Camp for an authentic sled dog team ride.

In the morning, we boarded the White Pass & Yukon Railroad right at the ship dock. We sat in comfortable coach cars with great views for this 3 hour, 40 mile roundtrip to the summit of White Pass - a 2865 foot elevation. On the way we were provided with a narration of the various highlights in the history of the railroad and this area.

After lunch, we boarded a bus and began our journey to the Alaska Sled Dog Adventures Mushing Camp. The bus ride took about 45 minutes and at one point we had to transfer to a smaller van to cross an old bridge and then arrive at the starting point for our sled dog ride.

We were loaded into a six-passenger sled on wheels with a single musher and sixteen sleg dogs up front. On command we took off and traveled on a dirt road through the forest for an exciting taste of what those Iditarod drivers face in much more severe conditions for days on end.

The camp we visited has almost 300 dogs in residence, many of whom have run in the famous 1000 mile race best known in the mushing world. Each dog has his/her own dog house and lives year-round outdoors cared for by their musher.