Plan an Anchorage Run

Plan a round trip through the tunnel: when to leave to reach Anchorage in time, and the last way home tonight so you are not stranded.

About these tools

Town Tools builds free, public tools for Whittier and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.

Whittier has one road in and out — the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel — and no grocery store and no hospital, so most trips mean driving to Anchorage and back through a one-lane tunnel that closes every night. This page plans the round trip: when to leave to reach the city in time, and the last way home tonight so you are not left on the wrong side overnight. It is the published schedule, not a live feed — trains and weather shift the times, so check the official status before you rely on it.

Times are worked out from your device’s clock against the published schedule.

This is the schedule — not a live feed

The times here are the published schedule, worked out from your clock. A train or bad weather can delay or close the crossing without notice — for the live status, check Alaska 511 live road conditions.

The trip in a nutshell

Beyond the tunnel it is the Portage spur and the Seward Highway into Anchorage — give yourself about an hour of driving each way once you are through, more in winter or heavy traffic.

Distance: about 60 miles
Driving beyond the crossing: about 55 min each way
Toll: Cars and motorcycles (Class A) pay $13 for the round trip, charged once heading toward Whittier. See the tunnel schedule tool for the full toll table and the seasonal-pass break-even.

Operating hours

Season	Dates	Open	Last way home
Summer hours	1 May – 30 September	5:30 am – 11:15 pm	10:30 pm
Winter hours	1 October – 30 April	7:00 am – 10:45 pmGates are locked at 11:00 pm.	10:30 pm

How the one lane works

The tunnel is one lane, shared with the Alaska Railroad, so traffic takes turns. Each hour, cars head toward Whittier in the :30–:45 window and toward Portage and Anchorage in the :00–:15 window. Aim to be in the staging area about 10 minutes before your opening, and allow 20–30 minutes to get all the way through.

Toward Whittier: around :30 past each hour
Toward Anchorage: around :00 past each hour

When it is at or below freezing, the tunnel opens only for the last 5 minutes of each window instead of the usual 15 — so be at the staging area early.

Trains and weather come first

Trains come first. An unscheduled freight train can add 15 to 30 minutes, and the tunnel can close for weather or an avalanche with little warning. Once the gates are locked overnight, there is no other way out by land until morning — so always leave yourself a margin.

Why the trip matters here

No grocery store: Whittier has only a small store in Begich Towers, so a full grocery run means Anchorage and back in one tunnel day.
No hospital: The nearest hospital is in Anchorage. For anything beyond the local clinic, the tunnel hours decide when you can go and still get home.

Official pages

Alaska DOT&PF — Whittier Tunnel schedule — The official hours and any seasonal changes.
Alaska 511 — Live closures and delays before you set off.

Live temperature by Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0).