Beluga Point Scenic Turnout
  There are several pods of beluga whales that run up and
down Turnagain Arm. One never knows
when they will appear, but an ideal place to watch them swim by is Beluga Point.
Two rock outcroppings provide nice flat areas to sit and set up camera
equipment to photograph the water below. But
even when no whales are present, I love to sit up on those rocks and take
in the view of the mountains across the inlet.
Beluga Point makes a perfect spot for a picnic.
The parking lot for Beluga Point is about 7 miles south of
Anchorage on the right side of the Seward Highway. There is no fee to park here, but there are also no
facilities of any kind – not even garbage cans.
However, there are several information placards describing the tide action for
Turnagain Arm, including a description of the bore tide.
If you purchase a tide book at just about any grocery store, you can
figure out when to be at Beluga Point to see the bore tides.
These massive walls of water move up the inlet about an hour after low
tide.
For an even better view of the inlet, there is a small
trail just to the east on the other side  of the Seward Highway.
An undeveloped parking lot allows about 5-6 cars to park, but it is just
as easy to walk across from the Beluga Point parking lot.
The trail begins on the west side of a large rock outcrop behind several
boulders. It climbs very steeply,
but within five minutes there will be a side trail to the right that takes one
to the top of the rock outcrop. This
is an excellent place to take pictures of the inlet and mountains.
On our way to Hope in June of 2003, Emily caught this
footage of a bore tide at the end of Turnagain Arm near Girdwood. It was a
rather gray day, and by this
time it had lost most of its force and was only a foot or two high. To
watch Emily's video clip of the bore tide, click
here. (file size 3.8 Mb).
Last visited: June 2000.
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