Alaska Landmarks

Turnagain Arm
Just to the south and east of Anchorage is an arm of Cook Inlet called Turnagain Arm.  With some of the highest tides anywhere on earth, Turnagain Arm is an ever changing spectacular panorama of mountains jutting straight up from the sea. 

Bald eagles, Moose, Black bear, Brown bear, Dall sheep, Beluga and Killer whales can all possibly be spotted when traveling along it’s shores via the Alaska Railroad, automobile or motor coach. 

 “Bore tides”, a phenomenon that occurs as one tide is not done emptying out as the new tide starts to come in, thereby causing a standing wave of 1 to 6 feet that literally walks right up the inlet can be seen at certain times. 

Although the scenery is amazing every inch of the way there are a couple of things we like to tell people about as they are not as obvious.

As you approach the town of Girdwood and Mount Alyeska you’ll begin to notice along side the highway in some spots entire areas where all of the trees have long ago died off.  These are areas where the land dropped 6 to 8 feet during the 1964 earthquake that shook all of South Central Alaska.  These trees which had stood above the tidal plain dropped into it and were subsequently killed by the seeping salt water that eventually turned these areas into salt water marshes.

The other thing is that as you go along you may notice that on the sides of most of the mountains there will be large areas where for no apparent reason there are no trees growing.  There are trees on either side of these areas but nothing larger than bushes in between the forested parts.  What you are looking at are avalanche chutes.  With the combination of mountains running right down to the sea, Turnagain Arm bringing its moisture with it on each turn of the tide this area gets very heavy, very wet snow and that combination means sooner or later you’ll have avalanches.  Some of the chutes you see have been there forever as year after year they experience avalanches, but some will be very fresh and will give you a new appreciation for the power Mother Nature can unleash.