Alaska 2012 - Day 12 & 13

While in Anchorage we took a few days to do a variety of things. There were days that you could do bear tours, and many other things, but we opted for Whitewater rafting with Nova Alaska.  Nova offered rafting trips that were a bearable drive from Anchorage, and we signed on to the Lion's Head trip, that goes right by the Matanuska Glacier.  The river was running high, so we ended up with Class 3 and 4 rapids to travel.  We donned drysuits and helmets before the trip, and they warned us that whereas some rafts it's optional to paddle, that depending on the raft style, or our position in the raft, paddling and paddling hard would be mandatory....for everyone's safety.  It turned out to be much more exhilarating than I thought it would be, and no, you really can't just let the raft drift down the river on it's own.  We passed right by the Matanuska glacier in 2 spots and it was awesome.  The ice was pure black, and came all the way to the river.  There were a couple of areas that had only that day become blown out into the river, and they told us it was a rare sight.  Also, there was a gap of about 4" under the glacier...it was amazing to see how the ice suspended itself above the water like that...ready to crack off at any time.  In a couple other areas we saw RUSHING rivers flowing into the main river, and the waters were pure blue mixing with the brown of the main river.  We were told that these rivers were only a couple hundred yards long, and flowed directly out of the glaciers themselves as runoff.  VERY cool stuff!
Another day, we traveled by car over to Whittier, AK, through the Whittier tunnel.  This in itself was pretty cool. It's a 1-way, 1-lane tunnel that is both a railroad and a vehicle tunnel.  They alternate every 15 minutes between the railroad and the cars, and which direction of flow it is, so you have to plan ahead to make sure you're waiting there when the tunnel opens.  It takes you right through the mountain to the other side in to Whittier, AK. In Whittier we boarded a glacier tour boat, paid for by "Let's Fly Alaska", where we had some great prime rib and salmon (all you can eat) and headed out to the area around Blackstone glacier.  These glaciers were HUGE!  Many of the smaller glaciers in the area were named after Wisconsin cities, interestingly.  You boat up to them and they just keep looking bigger and biggers the closer you get.
There are numerous waterfalls all along the trip, and we saw lots of seals and sea otters swimming by, especially in the fields of small ice bergs.  (Technically they aren't an ice berg until they reach a certain sizes, but I'll stick with bergs)
At one point we stopped so they could fish out an ice berg and they chipped it into little pieces for ice in the Margarita...that was pretty cool.  Notice in the photo above the ice berge with another glacier cruise ship in front of it. That gives an idea of how huge these things are.  Also, there are waterfalls all around the glaciers where the melt-off just comes blasting out of the mountain.  Below are some sea lion and sea otter pictures.  They had a sea otter fur on the boat and it was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING how soft that stuff is.  We had a great day relaxing on the boat, and then it was back to Anchorage for the night.

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