The incredible vastness of Anchorage
Sure, Anchorage proper is a tiny city, certainly smaller than Amsterdam but just try to put together a descriptive sentence about any city in Alaska without resorting to the adjective "vast" and see how well you do. It's just not possible. The spaces are so open, the mountains so present, the sky so...vast.
With only 22 hours of daylight (per day!) at our disposal, it was tough deciding what to do first. We arrived late on the first day, so the answer was self-evident.
We waited around until midnight to watch the sunset. Had tiredness not set in, we could have then waited an additional two hours and also caught the sunrise.
But, the next day was road trip day. Piled into a van/ car caravan, nine of us headed south on the Seward highway, one of the most scenic roads in all of the US (this is not only my opinion, it is also a statement that is in every single piece of Alaskan travel literature that has ever been written). Past experience has taught me that the wildlife in this part of the world, abundant as it may be, will always stay impossibly far outside the range of my camera lens. Seriously, on this visit alone, I walked across town to a salmon run viewing creek and did not find as much as a goldfish, only bored and bewildered fishermen. I have also seen enough stunning nature pics to know that this is a problem that is very specific to me and me only. But, since there is not much I can do about being me, I simply took a different approach. Our first stop was the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, a place where we would be guaranteed to see moose, elk, musk oxen and other assorted Northern ungulates, all in an open and natural setting.
The stated philosophy behind this organization is to tend to injured and orphaned wildlife until they can be reintroduced into the wild, however every animal I asked about was set to live out the rest of its life at the facility, usually because it had become too accustomed to humans, so I'm not too sure how to feel about the whole thing. It felt more like a zoo under the guise of a nobler purpose. Next time, I think I'll try my admittedly minimal luck at finding these creatures minus the wire fencing.
Continuing on, we went around the corner to the Portage Glacier info center/ souvenir shop/ boat tour boarding place. They fit a lot into this space is all I'm saying. It was here that we began our one hour tour out to the quickly receding Portage Glacier. The time to reach the glacier was maybe 10 minutes, tops, meaning we had plenty of glacier viewing time. I can now safely say that I have viewed this particular glacier from every possible angle, short of actually walking atop it.
Following the Seward Highway through mountain passes truly worthy of all the hype, we eventually reached the tiny- yet super duper vast- town of Seward (anyone else sense a theme, name-wise, at play here?). It was the perfect combination of natural beauty and little artsy- hippie town. If I had not had to return to Anchorage, I would have loved to have spent a night or two there, by which time, I would no doubt have met all the locals and become conversant in the latest neighborhood gossip.
We spent the next couple of days luxuriating under amazing skies and marveling at spectacular views, all from Anchorage's outdoor cafes. Hard to imagine this was only 30-some days ago as I now pack up my laptop and head out to a charming 20-seat, 16th century canal-side brown cafe, one which could be described in innumerable ways, but never, ever as vast.
Comments
Post a Comment