Entries Tagged "alaska travel"

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

InnerSea Discoveries will focus on the Alaskan Wilderness, eschewing traditional port calls. Slated to debut in 2011, the new brand will target the adventure travelers.

InnerSea will take passengers on wild-life and wilderness-focused itineraries through Alaska's Inside Passage on the 80 passenger Wilderness Discoverer and 60 passenger Wilderness Adventurer. The ships will offer two, seven day itineraries between Ketchikan and Juneau, but they won't stop in any ports along the way. Instead, they will spend the cruise sailing through fjords, around glaciers and through the Islands and Coastal cruising areas of Southeast Alaska.

The itineraries will take passengers on Zodiacs to explore glaciers and wildlife up close and will make landings to take guided hikes through remote areas, speluking trips and kayak excursions. The ships will also carry their own fully equipped fishing boats. They're reaching into areas that other small ships don't even go into.

Written by C Kennedy
kennedy@atlastravelweb.com

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Ever wonder why glacier ice looks blue?

This is because of how the sunlight passes through the ice and what happensto the sunlight.  Sunlight looks white; however, the light is really made up of all the colors of the rainbow.  You may recall seeing this when using a prism in middle school science classes.  Each of the sun's colors have different wavelengths, or amounts of energy in them.  When the sunlight tries to go through the solid glacier ice crystals the sun gets broken up into lots of colors.  Red and yellow have very little energy and the thick ice soaks up the red light more than it soaks up the blue light. The blue light has enough extra energy to get away from the solid ice crystals without getting absorbed or soaked up.  This is why the only color people see is the blue color that escaped.

Best Glaciers of Alaska:

• Grand Pacific Glacier (Glacier Bay National Park): Three intimidating walls of ice surround boats that pull close to the glaciers.
• Exit Glacier (Seward):  It towers above like a huge blue sculpture, the spires of broken ice are close enough to breathe a freezer-door chill down on watchers.
• Western Prince William Sound: On a boat from Whittier, you can see a couple dozen glaciers in a day. Some of these are the amazing tidewater glaciers that dump huge, office-building-size spires of ice into the ocean, each setting off a terrific splash and outward-radiating sea wave.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Anchorage is Alaska’s largest city and home to approximately fifty percent of the entire population of the state. The city is situated on a triangular peninsula bordered on the east by the rugged Chugach Mountains, on the northwest by the Knik Arm, and on the southwest by the Turnagain Arm. Anchorage can trace its origins to the railroads, as it began as a tent city in 1915 for construction workers on the Alaska Railroad. In its first year, Anchorage grew to a population of 2,000; most of them railroad workers.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

You never forget them — the vivid impressions from your first visit to Alaska. A 10-story crystal-blue river of ice in Glacier Bay National Park, icebergs calving into the tidewater with a thunderous crack. The spectacular and untamed wildlife, from a nesting eagle high in a Sitka spruce to a family of brown bears foraging along a rocky beach. Your first glimpse of the soaring, silent magnificence of Mt. McKinley. It’s everything you ever imagined — and all you traveled so far to see. This is one of life’s greatest adventures. One you’ll want to plan carefully so you don’t miss a thing.