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Turnagain Arm and Seward

First stop on the Great Southern Loop trip was Denali National Park. It's only a couple hours south of Fairbanks. It's beautiful, it's huge, it takes a full day bus ride to get all the way to the interior (almost 100 miles each way) and we had about 2-3 to spend. Mt. McKinley is rarely visible, since it's often cloudy and the 20 thousand foot tall mountain is surrounded by 5 and 10 thousand foot tall mountains.

Click on the thumbnail images to get larger ones (around 100-300K). Click on the "huge" link to get the full size pictures (around 3M). Around 70 pictures included.

Beluga Point, Turnagain Arm

We stopped at Beluga Point, just south of Anchorage on Turnagain Arm and spend some time exploring the area.

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A sign at Beluga point.

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Three shots looking out to the water at Beluga point. Railroad tracks separated the parking area from the shore.

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A picture of the rocky outcropings by the shore, the water, and the mountains in the distance. The clouds and snow gave them a stark, high contrast look that was very striking.

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Some of the mountains, possibly the Alaska Range. This is what I think of as Alaska pictures: water, mountains, snow, and clouds.

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More shots of the big rocks by the water, the hillside (behind us on land, I think), and the shore.

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More shore in the first one. A bit of mountains poling through a gap in the rocks in the second one (more pictures from there 10 pictures later, or 4 sets below). And in the last one, a rock in the water, though the tide was very low.

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The second picture shows low tide and the patterns in the mud flats. The first picture is a close-up of the patterns in the mud. And a picture of a big, rock, with trees on top, jutting out into the water.

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Looking at the shoreline, adn two shots of the piles of driftwood that's been washed up.

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Two more pictures of mud flat patterns. The cool layering looks like they should be sandy, but they're actually rather solid. Walking on them does not leave footprints.

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A couple pictures of the view of the mountains through a gap in the rocks in a little cove. I imagine it's filled with water at high tide. The cloud-shrouded snow-capped mountains on the far side of the inlet is very striking.

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A picture of one of the big rocks. Good climbing/scrambling rock. Stephanie had disappeared while I was taking pictures. Eventually I realized she was on the rock. I didn't climb there, as I figured by the time I got there, she would have left, and then she'd be waiting for me. Using the telephoto lens, I got a picture of her on the rock, as she shouted to me "Did you get a picture of that tree" pointing behind her. My answer was, "Yes, I did...now."

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And finally, two pictures of me with the railroad tracks, the inlet, and the mountains in the background.

Seward

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I don't have many pictures of the drive from Anchorage to Seward, since I was driving. There was one point when we were stopped at a construction zone, waiting for our turn to go. There were pretty, snow-capped mountains in the distance, beyond some green, grassy areas. So I took a couple pictures of the mountains. The third picture is of Seward, with mountains in the distance.

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They had some nice flowers in town. We saw a bunch while walking. Stephanie asked me to take a few pictures of them, so I did.

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The Seward Highway (Highway 9) is the road that goes into Seward. It becomes 3rd Avenue which is kind of the main street in town. I took a picture looking north of the main downtown strip, looking to the left (west) and right (east) and then looking south. The Alaska SeaLife Center is the big building at the end of the road in the third picture.

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A shot looking north, showing the shops. The mountain in the distance is where Exit Glacier is located. The second shot is a picture of the hills (to the east I think). Not much snow left (this is late June).

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Two shots of Seward and the mountains beyond it. It's very striking. The only thing vaguely similar that it reminds me of is near Puget Sound (Puyallup to be specific), that's a little town that has Mt. Rainer visible in the distance. The difference is that they had one huge honking mountain and the rest was flat. In Alaska, they've got huge honking mountains all around.

Alaska Sealife Center

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A picture of the front of the building.

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They have Stellar Sea Lions. Three pictures of them. When they come out for feeding, they do some checks on them, like take their temperature and such. The one in the picture has been doing that routine for 18 years, so was familiar with what needs to be done before it's fish time. The patch on its head was from some sort of camera mount thing. I think they just shaved the fur and it hadn't grown back, as opposed to some sort of genetically modified laser-shark thing. These sea lions are merely big. The trainers do not work directly with the 600 lb. male. They have to be separated from him by a cage at all times, since he could simply move or roll over and kill a person.

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We were on a balcony, overlooking the pools. One trainer was feeding fish to the sea lion. The first picture is some fish feeding action, and the second was a nice close-up of fish-in-mid-air. Later, one of them was mucking around in the water and hooked a ribbon with his flipper and was just playing around. He seemed to be having fun.

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They have a pool that has aquatic sea birds. Sitting on a rock, quite content, maybe a foot or two away from me was a Tufted Puffin. Three shots of him.

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Some other shots of aquatic birds. One of them is a Murr, and another is some kind of duck. Sadly I don't really know what's what.

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A picture of some sort of sea duck and a picture of a sign about some of the birds (puffins and murres). Needs to see the full size version of the picture to be able to read it.

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A picture of a stellar sea lion and then two steallar sea lions from the botton of the tank. And a picture of some fish in the aquatic waterfowl tank. When I was at the top, the birds were diving in the water like a punk rocker heading for a mosh pit. But when I was at the bottom of the tank, none of the birds were diving. Like they were intentionally mocking me (the puffin that was on a rock must've told them to stay put or something). After a few minutes, I decided a picture of the blue water with the sun streaks in it was good enough and I moved on.

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There was a small tank with jelly fish in it, just swirling around. They looked cool, like they were from outer space (the blackness of the tank contributed to it) or that I was looking at some sort of x-ray. Because of the glass tank, I didn't want to use a flash. Even using a chair as a poor-man's-tripod, all the pictures were blurry, since they were swirling around a lot. But they still looked cool.

Resurrection Bay

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As usual, a picture of a sign describing the area. Then a picture of a beautiful snow-capped mountain. If you look at the sign, I think it's the peak that's to the left of "Fourth of July Creek", kind of under the "R" in Resurrection Bay. And a close-up of the cirque (I think) by the mountains.

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There was an otter in the water, just floating on his back, looking like Homer Simpson in a pool, minus the inflatable tube and beer. Cute. And a picture of bay.

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Finally, a few more shots of the mountains on the edge of Resurrection Bay.

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