This easy road trip from Anchorage will take you from the big city to the bottom of the sea
Getting to Lu Young Park in Prince William is like the opening montage of a horror movie.
After driving through a 2.5-mile tunnel, you pass beneath the shadow of a massive abandoned apartment building that looks like a relic from Chernobyl before arriving at a lonesome rocky beach that could charitably be described as secluded or honestly described as bleak. It looks like the kind of place you’d dump a body.
When I arrived at the state park’s rocky beach on an ice-cold day this March, the grayness of the exposed ocean bottom sat in contrast to the bright white of the ice and snow rising from the high tide line up into the mountains that rise sharply from Passage Canal in Prince William Sound. It was bitterly cold with an irascible wind and the idea of spending the next few hours wandering the beach looking for slugs wasn’t sounding nearly as appealing as it had the night before, when I’d agreed to accompany a biologist friend on a tide-pooling outing to Whittier.
My friend chose the day because it was one of the lowest tides of the year, a boon to those looking for the kinds of animals that ply their trades in the wild and often overlooked intertidal zones of the Alaska coastline. But as I began to walk the beach I was skeptical we’d find much more than mussels, whose bluish shells are ubiquitous on the rocky shoreline.
The first sign of life couldn’t have been more unexpected. Cove Creek runs into Prince William Sound at the park, but when we arrived near low tide, water from the near-frozen creek was only making it halfway to the sea. I walked to where the creek was slowly inching forward toward the open ocean, and to my surprise there was a tiny salmon fry being carried out with the flow of water. I saw another nearby — this one with part of its egg sack still visible — and surmised the fish likely hatched only hours before.
In summer, the creek is so thick with pink salmon you can literally walk across them for weeks before the spawning salmon die and are flushed out to sea. I was witnessing the rebirth of that cycle, the first splashes of what will soon be a flood of millions of baby fish struggling to survive against the odds.
Pretty cool, I thought.
It wasn’t long before my friend called me over to check out something he’d found beneath a rock. Some things, I should say. What I saw beneath the rock both repulsed and fascinated me — a wriggling mass of bugs, worms and eels that wouldn’t be out of place in a science fiction movie.
As the day wore on it seemed each rock held its own miniature world of oddities. A starfish here, a hermit crab there — You get a sucker fish! you get a sea urchin! You get an Irish Lord! As I looked closer and closer at the rocks beneath my feet, it began to feel as if none of them were actually solid at all, as if the entire sea floor was nothing but a wriggling biomass of invertebrates, shells and fish that look like tadpoles.
Although the beach was deserted, we had plenty of company. Bald eagles gathered sticks for a nearby nest while a handful of curious harbor seals kept an eye on the scene from just offshore. I took a cue from the animals and paused to admire the spectacular scenery around me, marveling at the fact I was just an hour’s drive from the heart of Anchorage. From the water’s edge, I could see the tops of towering mountain peaks above the dense conifer forests of the seashore.
Although Whittier is only 20 miles from Anchorage as the raven flies, their ecosystems are worlds apart. Located on the ecologically rich Prince William Sound, the climate is more temperate (and tempestuous) than that of Anchorage, its waters teeming with marine life as opposed to the relatively staid and silty waters of Cook Inlet. This difference makes the tiny port town (there’s fewer than 400 year-round residents in Whittier) an ideal location for looking for sea life, and much closer to the city than traditional beachcombing hotspots like Seward or Homer.
One cool thing about visiting before the snow melted was the distinct illusion that we were walking underwater while combing the beach. With the snow shelfs from the high tide line just above our heads, it was easy to imagine ourselves bumping along the bottom of the sea like seals nosing around for a snack.
As the tide began to creep up the beach, my friend called me over once again, his excitement undeterred by the icy wind on a sub-freezing day. Lifting up a large rock, he reached a clear plastic container into the water and scooped out a tiny red blob.
As he held it up to the sun, I could see the animal inside spread its eight elegant arms wide and dart across the bottom of the container. A giant Pacific octopus — albeit a tiny one.
We watched the animal explore its temporary home for a moment before releasing it onto a rock. The animal slithered its way off the rock and into the water, inching its way along the bottom before disappearing into a tiny crevice. It was home, and we decided that’s where we’d better be heading too.
Getting to Lu Young Park is remarkably simple and eminently rewarding but does require a bit of planning due to the schedule of the one-way tunnel. From Anchorage, drive approximately 45 miles south on the scenic Seward Highway to Portage Glacier Road and from there continue about 11 miles to the Anton Anderson Tunnel.
The tunnel itself is worth the trip. Built during World War II to link the strategic port of Whittier with existing rail lines, the narrow corridor is the longest highway tunnel in North America and truly a marvel of modern engineering.
There’s a $13 round-trip fee to use the tunnel, which opens for Whittier-bound traffic at the top of the hour and for Anchorage-bound traffic at the bottom of the hour. The tunnel is open from 7 a.m. to 10:45 p.m. October through April and from 5:30 a.m. to 11:15 p.m. May through September. Check the Alaska Department of Transportation website before visiting for the latest schedule updates.
If you go tide-pooling, remember to return any animals to where you found them and leave no trace of your presence. Rubber boots are highly recommended, as are warm clothes (a windbreaker and rubber gloves come in handy) and a curious attitude. You aren’t likely to see a lot of big animals — most will fit easily in the palm of your hand — but if you look closely there’s an amazing world of discovery to be had in the deceptively lively marine wonderland of Whittier.
Matt Tunseth is a freelance writer and photographer from Anchorage, Alaska. Write to him at matthew.tunseth@gmail.com
