Lots of towns in Alaska have no roads to civilization.
If you were traveling through the interior, you’d fly to these towns. If you’re on the coast, you take the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS). Yakutat is one of those remote coastal towns, so we are taking the ferry from Whittier to Yakutat.
The State of Alaska began operating the AMHS in 1963. It runs from the eastern Aleutian Islands, along the Inside Passage, on to British Columbia, Canada, and ends in Bellingham, Washington. The 3,500-mile route has 32 terminals and 35 ferries. It runs year-round.
We met the ferry last night at 11 p.m. at Whittier. We will arrive at Yakutat at 7:45 p.m. tonight. The ferry only stops at Yakutat once every two weeks, so we had to plan our trip around the AMHS schedule. It’s not cheap (really not cheap), but unless we fly (which is how we’re getting home), this is the only way to get to Yakutat.
There’s a fee for the Deathmobile and a fee for each of us. If we wanted to pay more, we could have stayed in a cabin. We decided to just sleep on the deck. We’re used to roughing it, plus I want to see everything I can along the way.
Footle and Grok 