One day in Whittier, Alaska! (Portage Pass, Emerald Cove, & driving the tunnel!)

It's crazy to me that this scenery is what is normal for those who live in Alaska. This is stuff you only see on National Geographic. We have spent the last couple weeks exploring the Kenai Peninsula, including the charming little town of Hope, road tripping down to Homer, camping by a glacier in Kachemak Bay State Park, and seeing glaciers and wildlife in Kenai Fjords National Park and Seward. And before we start making our way more north, we have one more spot we want to check out down this way, the small town of Whittier, which is located on the Prince William Sound. But to get there, we first have to go through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel. At two and a half miles, this is the longest highway tunnel in North America. It was originally built as a railroad tunnel during World War II, and it connects Whittier on the Prince William Sound to the Seward Highway in South Central Alaska. After only being open to train traffic for decades, it opened to the public on June 7, 2000 after extensive conversion. Despite now being open to both cars and trains, it's only one lane, so cars and trains have to take turns going through in one direction. It is only open from 5 30 a.m. to 11 p.m. in the summertime, and basically each direction opens once an hour for 15 minutes. Another important thing to know about the tunnel is that there's a toll to drive through it. It's $13 round trip for passenger vehicles as well as RVs under 28 feet that are not pulling a trailer. I feel like our van is always considered oversized and we always have to pay more for things, but not today. We're considered a regular vehicle. Oh, yeah. Almost let me hang in there. It is 7 28 and it opens at 7 30 for us, so it's almost time to go. You definitely want to try to time things right, so you're not waiting here for an hour, but I will say there are, I can see like three glaciers right now and some waterfalls while we're sitting here, so the view is not bad while you have to wait. Here we go. We're driving on train tracks. It feels like we're just driving through a train tunnel, which is what we're doing. We basically are, yeah. This is pretty neat. Like we were in there for ages. It was a long tunnel. And right at the end of the tunnel is our first stop of the day, the Portage Pass Trail, which is 4.2 miles and has about 1400 feet of elevation gain, and it's going to take us to a glacier and a beautiful lake and have some amazing views along the way. We made it to Portage Pass. It was a short but steep incline and we have stellar views from up here. On this side we have Prince William Sound, and just about in every direction you look you have a glacier in view, but our hike is not over yet. We're going to go down the path to the lake to that glacier there, the Portage Glacier. This is the Portage Glacier, and just like all of the glaciers we've seen here in Alaska, it is breathtakingly beautiful. It used to extend the entire length of this valley, and back in 1911 it would have gone about five miles that way, but it's since retreated to where it is now and created Portage Lake, which is over 650 feet deep. Even though we have seen so many glaciers in the last couple weeks, every single one is just insane to look at. We hope y'all aren't sick of seeing glaciers because we definitely are. They just blow our mind. Growing up in Texas, this is the complete opposite scenery from what we're used to. Unlike most hikes where you go up one way and down the other, this one we had to go up the pass, down to the lake, and then we got to go back up to the pass, and then back down to the van. All right, we made it back to the van, and now we're going to head into the actual town of Whittier, which is a pretty unique little place. After the Japanese attacked the Aleutian Islands during World War II, the U.S. Army needed a secluded location for a secret military base. Whittier was a perfect location for this because it could be an ice-free port and it's surrounded by 3,500-foot mountains. It is known as the Town Under One Roof because almost every resident in town lives in baggage towers, which are three buildings that were built between 1953 and 1957 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the Cold War, and at that time was the largest building in Alaska. The town is now known as a great jumping-off point to visit, the world's largest concentration of tidewater glaciers. You can go on cruises, take a guided fishing charter, kayak, so much more, but we're just going to walk around and enjoy the scenery before we go on another hike. Whittier? More like windier. We just drove about as far as you can drive in town, and while the drive out here is worth it alone, just look at these views. There's another glacier right there. It's crazy to me that this scenery is what is normal for those who live in Alaska. Like, I can't believe this is just what they get to see every single day, but we're not actually out here just for this view. We're here to hike the Emerald Cove Trail, which is 3.3 miles, and it shouldn't be too hard. However, we read it's very, very muddy, like almost to the point where it's not fun muddy. One review said absolutely beautiful view, absolutely wretched trail, so we decided that Kona is going to sit this one out because we don't really want to deal with a muddy dog the rest of the day, and it should be an adventure for us. One neat thing we read about on this trail is there might be some berries. Some blueberries and some salmon berries. We've seen both already now. This bush has some blueberries in it. Let's give it a try. It's tasty. It's tart. Probably not quite ready yet, but maybe it is. It tastes really good. I have never had a wild berry before. It's something I've wanted to try for so long. We've just never, I guess, had the right timing. This is so exciting. Oh, that is so awesome. I hope we find a bunch more along the trail so we can just keep snacking as we hike. I really want to find a ripe salmon berry. We've seen a lot that look kind of yellow, so I don't think they're ready yet. They're supposed to be nice and red, so we're going to be on the lookout because I've never had a salmon berry before. I purposely wore my Chacos out here to not get my shoes dirty because we read that somebody stepped in and they thought they were going to lose their shoe. That was a deep step. Oh my gosh. Whatever. I found a little detour on the side, so we're going to see if this fares better for me. Oh, it's still muddy. It's still muddy. It's still muddy. That was way better. That one wasn't ready yet. I just found some nice red salmon berries. Oh yeah, wow. Look at that. Oh, these are so juicy. They're berry juicy. That's good. Oh, round two. Besides the berries on the trail and the cove that we'll eventually make it to if we can stop stopping every few seconds to eat the berries, there's a waterfall. It also doubles as a foot washing station. I was about to cross this stream. I stuck a foot in and a massive fish like this big just like squirted up the creek here. Oh my gosh. I gotta start bringing my fly rod everywhere I go now, I guess. Oh my gosh. I was just saying this yesterday. I want to see them in these little tiny creeks. I'm pretty sure that was a salmon. That's what it has to be like. They're coming in from the ocean there. That was awesome. This hike has been full of so many fun little features that none of our other hikes have had. We are having the best time on this trail. We're never making it to this cove. This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I could stand here and watch these salmon all day. They're all trying to get upstream and they just keep trying and trying. They're trying to get up waterfalls and rocks and it is just so amusing to watch. I'm just cheering them on. I'm like, you go Sammy. You got this buddy. This is exactly one of the things that I dreamed of seeing when we were thinking about coming up here and finally getting here. Man, like this is only, this is stuff you only see on, you know, the nature shows, National Geographic magazines, on TV and stuff. So cool to see it with your actual eyes and it's, we can reach out and touch it if we took a step. Lost my Chaco. It's in here. Do you feel it? Yeah. Did it break? I don't think so. Oh my gosh. Maybe the Chacos were a bad move. Yeah. The reviews definitely weren't lying when they said this trail is muddy. Most of it hasn't been that bad. I've been able to skirt along the edge and stay fine, but this section right here, there's really no way of avoiding it. This hike is so different from any hike we've done in Alaska so far. Most of our hikes have been more about mountains or alpine lakes, but this one is more coastal. We have this gorgeous blue water, but we still have, of course, beautiful mountains and glaciers off in the distance. These cool rocks just jutting out of the water and then throw in the salmon and the berries. It's just been such a unique and different experience. It's not a very long hike. The mud definitely gets annoying, but man, what a sweet spot. For the muddy hike back, let's go. Oh my gosh. Our first Alaska bear. That was our first bear in Alaska. We've been here almost two months and we have not seen a bear. Wow. Finally. Yes. He was just walking through town. Yeah. We thought that the salmon was going to be the most exciting wildlife part of our day, so that was just the cherry on top. That was so exciting and to make things even better, it is 7 o'clock and the tunnels open from 7 to 7.15. We did not plan this at all. We just thought we'll just show up when we show up and we'll hope we don't have to wait 45 minutes and we're catching it right on time. Man, what a day. One of our favorite things in this area is just the drive between Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula along the Turnagin Arm. This is a waterway with the Chugach Mountains on one side and the Kenai Peninsula on the other and is known for a cool phenomenon called a boar tide where the outgoing tide and incoming tide clash, creating a wave that locals come out to surf. But beyond the boar tide, this drive is just amazingly scenic. We've driven it probably at least 10 times and it just never gets old. And along the road are a bunch of pull-offs where you can park for free overnight, which we have done countless times since being here in Alaska. It's pretty loud with a lot of cars driving by at night, but it is definitely not a bad view for the night. For dinner, we cooked up some African peanut stew from a website we love called Fresh Off the Grid. We'll make sure to link the recipe below. And we were going to go eat outside to enjoy the view, but it is so windy outside. The van isn't rocking and we've had enough wind for the day. So we're eating inside the van and we're just gonna look out the windows to see the view instead. We had such a fun day trip to Whittier. It's a unique town and today it was full of surprises. But next up, we're going to be leaving this coastal area of Alaska and heading just a little bit north of Anchorage to an area we are super excited to see, Hatcher Pass. We're in the tunnel. We made the tunnel. We saw a bear. We saw some salmon. Can't think of anything that rhymes with any of these things. It's peanut butter jelly time. Peanut butter jelly time. Drippy drippy drop. This dumpster is bear proof and Adam proof. The Kona shake.