Photo: A glacier near Thompson Pass
| Day 16 Thompson Pass to Girdwood (5/29) Map
We started the day early (4:35am) at the Thompson Pass Chalet. We arrived at Valdez (6:15am) to meet the Alaska Marine Ferry that took us to Portage. We parked our car in the lower deck and went up to the passenger deck. The weather was cold and wet, but luckily the seas were pretty flat, and most of the trip was sheltered. The captain spotted some dall porpoises and a humpback whale. Both spottings were occasions to stop the boat, turn it around and make sure that we all had maximum opportunity to see what we could. The ferry trip was from 7:15 to 2:00. We arrived in Whittier and it was raining hard. We drove in a convoy (5-minute drive) from the boat to the rail yard. Then waited an hour for the 15 minute ride on a flat car from Whittier to Portage. They are building a new automobile tunnel from Porage to Whittier. I suspect the train will be out of the picture as soon as that tunnel opens. It was quite an experience sitting in the car on the flatbed of the train. We went through 2 very dark tunnels which was the only real darkness we had in Alaska. We drove on to Girdwood, just south of Anchorage. You could see the problem with lack of building codes. There were large expensive homes next to shacks built from an old campertop. Girdwood was built on the side of a mountain and appears to be a resort ski area and suburb of Anchorage. |
| Girdwood is a stopover for us and tomorrow we will drive up to Denali. We stayed at the Gingerbread house. It was a nice new home, split level, and we were on the lower level. We had cable TV and the use of the washer/dryer. The owner made us breakfast of eggs and smoked salmon. |