Alaska Part 3

Onwards, our adventure continues. if you missed part 1 and part 2, go read them now!

Day 6 – Skagway

Yay! skagway! Start of one of the routes for the Klondike gold rush. What everyone says you should do in skagway is ride the train. so thats what we had signed up to do. We started this morning off really early and got on a bus which was going to drive us up the hill all the way to the end of the train line, in Fraser, BC, where we would ride the train back to Skagway. The reason we did it in this order was first, we got a short movie on the Klondike gold rush, and then the bus driver took us on a scenic drive all the way to Fraser. We stopped and got lots of photo opportunities along the canyon we were driving up. the funny thing about all this is that you end up driving from the USA into Canada. So we had to bring our passports. and we probably spent all of 20 minutes in BC. pretty crazy. anyways, so we finally got on the train, and it was awesome! i actually ended up taking a time lapse of most of the trip too. ill have to get that posted at some point. anyways, we learned all about the gold rush, and it was a great train ride back to skagway. i really enjoyed it. this was a short stop we had in town, and we were able to walk around town some after, but had to get on the boat before too long. that evening i set up the flash and we took some nice family portraits on the boat.

Lots of waterfalls on the way

hello, mountains

having fun

cute flowers

then we got on the train

crossed lots of bridges

very scenic

and the whole family

Day 7 – Hubbard glacier

The next morning, the captain was sailing us up the straight to see the Hubbard glacier. its the longest, over 10km wide, tidewater glacier in alaska. and theres sweet calving action, when sections of the glacier break off and fall in the water, all along it! the boat crawls into the inlet, as there are icebergs all around. and the captain would use the horizontal bow thrusters in the front of the ship to blast icebergs out of the way, so that they could get us closer to the face of the glacier. this was the only overcast day we had on the cruise, and apparently it actually makes for more beautiful ice. there was a little rain, and it was pretty cold out. either way, i was determined to get pictures of ice calving, so i stuck it out and took pictures for as long as possible. its pretty amazing to hear the ice crack and thunder. i did manage to get some good shots in the end, but it took a lot of dedication and patience.

After the glacier, the whole day was at sea, and we would arrive at seward the next morning. we would finally be cruising over the open ocean too, and even though it did not look like there were much of swells out there, you could feel it. these modern boats even have these horizontal fins that they deploy that help dampen the waves movement, and im sure it helped, but i cant even imagine how bad it would be if you actually had to sail through some bad weather.

sailing to get to the glacier

theres some calving ice!

mountains around us

iceberg

our boat at sunset

more sunsets.. whoo…

the moon peeking out

are you sick of these yet?

and our last view before seward

Thats it for today! only 4 more days to go, but dont worry, those were action packed! ill probably have two more updates, and then alaska will be done with! till tomorrow

View Part 4