The long fjord that runs about 50 miles SE from its opening by Anchorage to the land connection with Kenai Peninsula. The railroad and the Seward Highway follow the edge of the fjord to its beginning at the Portage Road turnoff. The fjord ends there, but the highway and rail lines continue south to the port town of Seward.
Unlike most fjords along the open ocean, Turnagain Arm is very shallow because it opens into Cook Inlet- and the heavy amounts of glacial silt feeding into it are very slowly carried away. At low tide much of the fjord is mud all the way across. There is a 40-foot+ tidal change in Cook Inlet, but very few waves or other turbulent sea water movement.
Thanks, JBR.
Because Turnagain Arm has such great tidal fluctuations- the water sometimes flows like a river when the tide is dropping. In fact, Captain Cook named it Turnagain River when he first explored the area. A few years later, Captain George Vancouver sailed in and realized it was just an arm of Cook Inlet- so he changed the name.
The water in this image is quite still because it was a slack tide- and a windless part of the day.
Charlie
Mirza Ahmad wrote:
Very serene, it looks tempting to walk across to the flats visible in the middle.
Mirza
Mirza-
Tempting perhaps- but extremely risky:
The "mud" is squishy glacial silt that is very hard to move through. And when the tide comes in, it comes in faster that a person can move to escape it.
The occasional person and moose ignore that fact- and drown.
Better to stand on the rocky edge (where I was) to enjoy the view.
Charlie
