Welcome friends and family!
The middle chunk of our Alaska trip was based in Anchorage with a trip to Seward. Don't forget, most of the photos can be expanded by clicking on them.
Enjoy,
Sharon & Dan

To Seward (July 1)
On July 1st, we picked up our rental car and drove south from Anchorage to Seward.


On the way down, we stopped in Beluga Point where we wandered on the beach and looked unsuccessfully for whales.

Some greenery, wildflowers, and lichen provided an interesting contrast to the dark gray rocks.
In Seward, we went to the Alaska Sealife Center, which lived up to the recommendations we had heard.

Outside the Alaska Sealife Center with Resurrection Bay in the background.

These creatures reminded us of Dr. Seuss creations.

This Eider was part of a cool waterfowl exhibit where you could watch ducks above the water while seeing fish and diving birds below the water on the lower level.

Common Murre.

Tufted Puffin


Horned Puffin

The puffins were excellent divers.

And now, in the category of faces that only a mother could love, we present: the Buffalo Sculpin...

...and the Giant Wrymouth.

The sea lion was another you could see both above the water and in the water (viewing on a lower level).

This sea lion was entertained for a long time by chasing sweaters that these little girls were running along the dry side of the glass.

Kenai Fjords (July 2)
We took a one day boat tour of the Kenai Fjords and saw so much wildlife. The staff on the boat might have been exaggerating for our benefit, but they claimed they very rarely see so much wildlife on their cruises. We thought they were playing it up for us, but in fact the captain had to apologize a few different times as she steered us away from some interesting scenes because we had to get moving to stay on schedule.

Despite some strong wind, we spent almost the entire trip on the outdoor deck at the bow (front) of the boat.

Almost immediately after we left the dock, we saw these cute sea otters.


These Dall porpoises (the fastest mammal in the ocean) played in the

boat's wake and swam right alongside the boat.

This nanny goat and her kid were strolling the rocks along the shore,

which is at a much lower elevation than is usual.

Humpback whale


We saw a few humpbacks lunge feeding, which means diving deep, then zooming up to the surface with their mouths open. When they get to the top, they close their mouths, and push out the water while the baleen traps krill inside.


Did you know that humpbacks have two blowholes, like nostrils? Until we zoomed in on this shot, we didn't know that either!


Cormorant

This bald eagle plucked a fish out of the water right between us and this fishing boat.

Tufted Puffin taking flight.

The captain said that puffins are some of the most ungainly birds in flight.

It wasn't just the wildlife that was cool.

We also saw interesting geological formations.



In typical sea lion fashion, they mostly looked like giant sleepy slugs.

But a few did put on a good show for us.

Common Murre, taking off from the water.

As we got closer to the glacier, we saw seagulls
hanging out on mini icebergs.

From a distance, you can see Aialik (eye-ah'-lick) Glacier coming between the mountains at the left side of the photo and meeting the water just behind the island at the right.

As we got closer, we got a better view of the edge of the glacier.

It's tough to get a sense of scale from these pictures, but it was also difficult for us when we were actually there. This boat provided a good reference.

The strata separating reminded Sharon of some squash innards.

When a chunk falls off they say the glacier is "calving."

We saw a number of harbor seals sunning
themselves on small chunks of ice.

And then we saw orcas!

Boy, did we see orcas!
We saw a pod of five transient orcas, which are not supposed to be as social as resident orcas.
This particular male breached five times while we watched.

Seward Eagles (July 3)
On the morning of the 3rd as we prepared to leave our hotel, we made sure to go check out the creek behind the cabins. We were supposed to enjoy its sounds by sitting in the hot tub the previous evening, but we didn't get around to it. When we got there, we found an eagle sitting in a tree about 25 yards downstream from us. Suddenly two other eagles flew by and pearched upstream about 15 yards away, but much higher up in their tree.

This guy was just chilling out the whole time.

This eagle looked smaller (although it's hard to tell from these photos) and was doing more flying.

This was the only female eagle we saw the whole trip.


Glaciers (July 3)
On the way back from Seward, we stopped at Exit Glacier. Exit Glacier is so named because it's where the first expedition to cross the Harding Ice Field in 1968 exited the ice field.

We liked this bear warning. Very practical, but the eating part had us thinking "yeah, duh."




This was as close as we could get.
After Exit Glacier, we went to Portage and Byron Glaciers. You used to be able to hike to Portage Glacier, but it has now receded so far that it's not possible to reach it. Byron Glacier was accessible by a shorter hike. Dave and Roger took a break while we went off with Mary Lou to see Byron Glacier.

We hiked along a stream for a while without seeing the glacier. The glacier runoff is so cold!

Finally, the glacier! It's the bluer ice in the top third of the picture.




The snow broken off in giant strips was so cool.

Anchorage (July 4)
We enjoyed independence Day in Alaska. There was a good parade and a nice set of presentations.

This guy would have fit in well with the Stanford Band.

We wish this was our car.

Reindeer!

This crow was trained to take donations and place them in the jar. It was cool and the donations went to a good cause. This group rescues and rehabilitates animals.

This eagle was rescued from the Exxon Valdez spill.

They wanted to release it to the wild, but said they had to keep it because it had too much trouble flying.

Eagle River (July 5)
On the 5th, we took advantage of still having the rental car, and drove out to Eagle River Nature Center in Chugach State Park. We saw a lovely river nestled between mountains, and we saw a lot of firearms. At the visitor center and on the hike, we probably saw fewer than 20 people all day, but they all seemed to be carrying weapons.

Some interesting trees on the hike.


At the bottom of the valley, everything was damp
and there was pretty lush vegetation.

Only slightly farther along the path, we went up hill a bit and the flora dramatically changed: the trees from deciduous to pine and the plants from ferns to lichen.

On our way down the hill, the trees changed again,
this time from pine to aspen.

Eventually we got back to the cottonwood trees that we saw early in the hike. They had really thick deep bark that was so light. Pieces that had fallen off felt like the density of balsa wood or less.


Just like us, this butterfly was lazily enjoying the sun.

Continue on with us to the Denali Page!
Questions? Comments? Contact us at:
swest@stanfordalumni.org
dsginsburg@gmail.com