Whittier to Valdez
One
thing that’s constant in Alaska is the weather changes. On my way out of Homer
the weather started turning sour on me. It was rainy and cold all the way to
the Whittier tunnel. The ferry didn’t ;eave until the next dayb For Valdez so I
decided to spend the evening in Girdwood and ride to the tunnel. They had live
music at Max’s open mike night in Girdwood and I hung out there and all the
locals told me to just drive up the road and find a pull off and camp.
I went up the road and found this little valley back in Girdwood and there was plenty of pulloff’s around to camp for the night.
The next morning I road over to the tunnel and got in line for my ride through this 2.5 mile long tunnel.
This tunnel was made for train travel only but they opened it up to cars. The tunnel operator spent several minutes cautioning me about staying in the 3 foot center section of the track because if I hit the train track it would catch my tire and I would go down. He let me know all the problems they ever have in the tunnel is motorcycles hitting these rail and going down.
I made it to Whittier through the tunnel without any issues and got put on standby for the ferry. I should have booked my spot in Homer but the ferry operator said motorcycles have no problem getting on the ferry standby. I did end up getting on the ferry but it was never guaranteed until the last second when they knew they had room.
As soon as we left the harbor the ferry operator went straight over to a nice waterfall on the other side of the bay from Whittier. It turns out this ferry does a lot of sightseeing for the passengers, rather than just transporting them.
About halfway through the 6 hour trip to Valdez we came past a beach that was full of Sea Lions. They were literally everywhere on this beach makes tons of racket as we passed.
Just passed the Sea Lions we started coming by icebergs and eventually the whole bay was full of them. In the distance was the Columbia Glacier which was calving all these icebergs but we couldn’t get any colder to see the glacier doing it’s thing.
In the distance you could just make out the Columbia Glacier. I arrived in Valdez at 10:30 and had to depart at 4:00 AM. I decided not to try and setup camp for such a short time but rather I went across the street from the ferry terminal and slept on the ground for a few hours. I used my bike cover to lay on the ground and cover me and stayed in full riding gear for warmth. That morning I made it onto the Cordova ferry with no problems.