Mud Flats in Winter

While I was in Alaska last week, we drove down to Girdwood in hopes of breaking out from under some persistent, usually snowing clouds. Our find-the-sun attempt really didn't work, however. In fact, while in Alaska, I saw only one really clear day, a day set aside for family.

Going to Girdwood involves driving the Seward Highway (partly Alaska S.R. 1) south out of Anchorage. The highway follows the railroad along the north side of Turnagain Arm.
We came into view of the Turnagain Arm mud flats near Potter Marsh (currently a snow-covered, frozen marsh), and spotted these oval, sub-rounded ice fragments sitting on mud covered by a thin sheet of water. The tide was clearly down - was it going out or coming in?
A bit of mud flat shows itself between Potter Creek and McHugh Creek - mud, water, and mountains across the arm are all gray, making for a particularly wintry look.
We made our usual stop at Beluga Point, a good place check the disposition of the tide. The wind was howling up the arm toward the east, enough to make for a penetratingly cold experience. In fact, I was the only one who chose to get out of the car (the Real Alaskans knew better), and after doing that once, I didn't do it again until we came to a heated and enclosed espresso place in Girdwood.

The tide was going out, though you can't really tell from my photo; the water was moving downstream to the west, with surface waves from the wind breaking to the east.
Mud flats near Indian Creek, looking up Turnagain Arm to the east.
Mud flats between Bird Creek and Bird Point, looking across Turnagain Arm at the Kenai Mountains. We can see two relatively large stream incisions in the mountains on the left side of the photo beyond the low, tree-covered land, the tip of which is Bird Point. The valley just above Bird Point was carved by an unnamed drainage; the larger valley on the far left was carved by Sawmill and Slate Creeks. These drainages are U-shaped in their upper reaches, and V-shaped below about 500 feet.
Partly frozen mud flats, with the lowland of Bird Point in the middle background, in front of the steep, glacially shaped northern front of the Kenai Mountains.
Near shore, between Bird Point and Girdwood, angular to sub-rounded fragments of ice float on the muddy water of Turnagain Arm. Much of this thin ice originated as pancake ice.
Snowy and partly frozen mud flats with piles of chaotic ice blocks, near Girdwood, looking across Turnagain Arm toward the large, U-shaped mouth of Seattle Creek.
Snow-covered and frozen, nearshore mud flats with strange ice forms that look like mini-hoodoos. This photo was taken near Girdwood, and looks east across the below sea-level channel formed by Glacier Creek. Through the fog, you can vaguely see in-use power lines, along with dead trees left from the 1964 Good Friday earthquake, when the land sank and salt water flooded the area, killing the trees.

Turnagain Arm photo locations

The same mud flats in summer.

Turnagain Arm: AK2008 Day 2

As soon as we could, after getting there, we packed our bags (again) and left a typical Alaskan house in a not-so-typical Alaskan mini-van (it isn't rusty or dented, and it's not a pickup truck)...

...and we immediately took one of the three small segments of freeway in Alaska, all located in the Anchorage area, and headed southeast out of town as fast as possible, on Alaska State Route 1. Alaska has exactly 12 numbered highways, 1 through 11 and 98, which can be viewed here. Several of them don't connect with any other roads except by air or sea.

We didn't make it very far, not even to Beluga Point (about seven to eight miles outside Anchorage, our usual first stop) at Mile 110 (see this article for a list of places by mile number) when we stopped to view the mudflats - to see whether the tide was going in or out - and to view our general destination across Turnagain Arm: the Kenai Penninsula. While looking across the arm, we got a through-the-clouds view of Mt. Redoubt, which last erupted in 1990.

Our next stop was the Famous Alaska Turbidite Locality, which is a bit east of Milepost 105, about 23 miles outside of Anchorage. This turbidite roadcut, seen below from the east looking west, is between Windy Point and Indian Valley. The entire roadcut, top to bottom, is turbidites - more about them later. (Can you wait?)

A bit down the road, we made our usual coffee and hot chocolate stop at Girdwood - Mile 90 - which has a gas station along side the road, a gift shop or two, and at least one espresso place. This is the turnoff to the Alyeska ski resort.

While at Girdwood, you can't help but notice the dead trees all around, especially between the highway and the arm (Turnagain Arm), which resulted from the sinking of the land there during the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964, and the consequent exposure of the tree roots to more water than they are normally used to, with that water also being a bit salty. A huge area was affected by subsidence, including most of the Kenai Penninsula. An earlier seismic event about 800 years ago resulted in similar subsidence, as recorded by a forest of tree stumps buried beneath these present-day dead trees.

And farther up (or down?) the road, approaching Portage but still on the north side of the arm, a nice U-shaped valley, carved by glaciers, comes into view, below. This is the valley of Seattle Creek, a small valley on the south side of Turnagain Arm.

Finally, we cross the bridge at Twentymile River, still on the north side of the arm, still with the tide partly out. A larger U-shaped valley can be seen across this upper, eastern end of Turnagain Arm: Ingram Creek. This green valley is the glacially carved valley that the highway goes through, after we make the turn of Turnagain Arm, at Portage, and head west for a short distance. A topo map, via MSRMaps, can be seen here.

And, hey, that's as far as we'll get tonight!

Mud Flats

Yes, I'm back - a lot of catching up to do - and then, back to work.

Kim at All of My Faults Are Stress-Related is interested in mud pictures, so I'm posting a couple photos of the mud flats in the Turnagain Arm, Alaska, fjord. In these photos, the tide is going out.

The first two photos were taken on AK Route 1 near Beluga Point looking southeast and then southwest; the third photo was taken on the same road between Bird Point and Girdwood, looking east.

This is the kind of mud you shouldn't venture out on at all. Every year, people get stuck in these mud flats - the tide will then come in, often way over a person's head. The only way to get a person out of this mud is to have the fire department come, quickly, with high-pressure hoses, which blast water all around the stuck person. The water supposedly makes the mud thin enough that the person can then walk out, but I think that ropes may sometimes be necessary. Any rescue has to be accomplished before the tide comes in, sometimes with a tidal bore of 6 feet high at speeds of 12 miles per hour.

So, just don't go there (onto the mud flats). A 2005 Geotimes article describes the tidal bore and some other points of interest in Turnagain Arm.