Whittier

We drove to Whittier – there is only one road to the town and you have to go thru a 2.5 mile one lane tunnel that is also shared by the railroad.  At the half hour, southbound traffic starts thru.  15 minutes later they stop the traffic, and, on the hour the northbound traffic starts thru.  Now if a train comes, then all north and south bound traffic stops and has to wait for the train to pass.

There are two tunnels - this is the first one.  No toll here, but the second one costs $12 for our truck.

We hit the tunnel just right because we did not have to wait at all.  It is 2.5 miles long and the speed limit is 25 MPH.  They have a stop light just before you enter to control the distance between cars.

You can see Whittier on the map.

They take containers off ships and put them on rail cars here.

A view accross the bay at a glacier.

Whittier is considered to be the gateway to Prince William Sound and is neat little seaside hamlet.  They had an interesting museum that explained Whittier’s role as a secret port in WWII .

Very large harbor.

We watched the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry dock in the afternoon.

There were at least 2-30 vehicles including a couple of Class C campers that came off the boat.  One of the stops is Cordova, AK and I think there is a campground there, but you can only get there by this boat.  A semi- trailer was also driven off – I assume it took essentials over there.

Another glacier behind Whittier and the subsequent run-off.

Whittier is an unusual town in that there are NO individual houses – they all live in condos/apts – and there are only two of them!  They do have a school and city services like police and fire.  They have two basic means for survival – tourists and fishing.  Not sure what they do here in the winter time as they get over 260 inches of snow!

On the way out of Whittier, we didn’t time it right and had to wait about 40 minutes.  But the weather was beautiful and we had brought our books along so we just read.

While we were in Homer a week or so ago, they were starting to talk like summer was already over and fall had begun.  The Forest Service person on the Portage Glacier cruise also made a comment that summer ended about 10 days ago and that winter would start tomorrow at 4 o’clock!!  And, this morning, Thursday, it is 40 degrees out there!!