Snow & HorseShoe bend

Page was on the travel list during our visit to Monument Valley. It had snowed heavily a day before and everything was covered under the soft white blanket. We cancelled the Upper and lower Canyon tours since there was no sun and snow was definitely there.

The walk to horseshoe bend is very short and easy from the parking area, probably less than a mile round trip. It was hard to get a nice frame, since the edges of the horseshoe cliffs had slippery ice. But we managed with one person holding the tripod base so that it doesn't slip into the river and me taking the shot.

A trip to the canyons and horse shoe bend without snow is still pending.

Adieu,
Divya

Alaska Byron Glacier Trail

After spending the day on a cruise at Prince William Sound we had enough light and time to finish the Byron Glacier trail, thanks to the sun which was still on our head at 8 PM. It felt weird to have your sunglasses on at 8-9 PM to avoid the strong sun glare.

Around 49 miles south of Anchorage turn onto Portage Valley Road and travel 6 miles to Boggs Visitor Center. Its very near to Portage Glacier boat dock.

The visitor center had closed by evening, so we pretty much had to rely on the road signs, since the internet too had gave up on us in Alaska. Bryon glacier is probably one of the easiest and comfortable trails to reach and experience a glacier(Also Matanuska Glacier).

The trail is flat and meanders through a fine stream gushing from the glacier. The trail just changes from shrubs to an open snow area. A little walk into the tails leads to a pile of rock debris. You have to carefully walk over the rocks to get nearer to the glacier.

Receding glacier, stone debris, water streams from the glacier make the perfect scenery.

I would definitely advise to be very cautious while walking on melting ice and also from falling rocks. While we were there, we saw a rock almost half the size of bus break from the mountain and roll half way down before getting stuck in a pile of snow.

Its a great moment to watch from a distance, but very scary if you are up on that snow and mountain.

Byron Glacier is a very pleasant and easy trail, not to be missed when in this area.

* Do coat yourself with mosquito repellent
* Plan out the Portage Glacier, we missed that.

And thats how we ended out first day in Alaska, high on ice, colors and the expectation just rose from the rest of our Alaska trip.

Adieu
Divya

Alaska Trip Day 1 - Prince William Sound Whittier

We spent beautiful 9 days last summer in Alaska. It was indeed the most beautiful place I have ever visited. Alaska trip will have around 9 posts, else I might just lose out on so many thing to talk about and share pictures.

It took a lot of research and planning to finalize this trip to come up with the perfect itinerary for us, in my opinion.

Day 1: We flew in Anchorage at midnight. The magic started on the plane itself, it was pitch dark in Seattle at 9:00 PM but as we approached Alaska the sky started getting some colors. We landed in quite late maybe 1:00AM, and the sky still had some hue of Orange. Picked up the car, checked in, pulled in the curtains and slept.

The day started at 8:00 with a bright sun and a beautiful drive to Prince William Sound in Whittier. The road from Anchorage to Whittier is through the beautiful TurnAgain Arm. We were already getting late for our Prince William Sound Cruise and since we knew we would be driving this arm another 5 more times, we did not stop. The scenery was breath taking.

First Click in Alaska, while waiting for Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel to open

The road to Whittier goes through Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel(Whittier tunnel), which opens every 15 minutes for opposite direction. On reaching WhittieriIt all started with the 26 glacier cruise,

On board Ship, the view was breathtaking

The cruise began and it started getting chillier. It was quite sometime before we reached a glacier, but there were several other receding glaciers at the distance, glistening like silver specks on the green mountains.

We saw a lot of wildlife from jellyfish, otters, killer whales but the most memorable was the breaching humpback whale, I shall share the video on youtube, it was indeed the highlight of the day. How often do you see a humpback breaching not once, not twice... just lost the count.

If the breaching whale was not enough, we saw some enormous and loud calving at the glaciers. We went closest to the Surprise glacier. These glaciers are humongous and make the sound of a loud rock falling and breaking into water,

The view from the ship was dreamy, as I had probably seen on LOTR(maybe) where you have hundreds of waterfall surrounding you, and I did not know when to click the picture, when to awe and when to start recollecting all my dreams.

Some other ways of travelling Alaska are either by train or cruise, but we chose to drive. It gave us the flexibility to stop where we wanted, do some trails and hikes late in evening.

Alaskan Rail, Whittier

None of these pictures can ever do justice to what I saw in Prince William Sound in person. I had hundred of pictures from this cruise. We also managed to do the Bryon glacier hike thanks to the prolonged daylight. More about those in later posts.

Adieu

Divya