We stayed in Whittier September 10 and 11, 2024.  While the tiny city gets mixed reviews, we thoroughly enjoyed it and would like to stay there again.  It IS different.

In order to get to or from the city by road or train, you travel through a narrow,  one-way tunnel.  There is only room for vehicles or a train, not both. 

At least they added lights when they converted the tunnel to allow motor vehicles.  When I went through by train in the 1980’s, the tunnel was unbelievably dark.

The population of the city is about 300 people,  most of whom live in Begich Towers.  We stayed in a nice one room apartment with kitchen on the 14th floor, rented through Glacier View Condo Suites.   I recommend reading City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita for a fictional read that gives a fun feel for the city and its strange history.

We saw a black bear and lots of waterfalls from our room window.  We loved the functional kitchen with running water (so much better than our dry kitchen in Healy).  The bathtub was great as well.

Exploring the town included more tunnels.

It doesn’t take long to drive all of the roads in the area.  It was raining most of the time and always overcast limiting the view.  Hopefully on a return trip we can see what it looks like on a clear day.

Fishing for hatchery salmon was remarkably good at low tide.  We lucked into our fastest catch rate of coho ever:  10 coho in well under 2 hours. 

On September 12, we loaded our truck onto the Alaska Marine Highway  ferry to head to Cordova for a week.  I briefly wrote about those adventures (https://roaming-nature.com/2024/09/20/whittier-and-cordova-a-few-highlights/), but still hope to flesh it out with a couple additional posts.