August 7 - Happy Anniversary

We moved back into town for a night of hook-ups and laundry. After chores we drove up to see the Valdez glacier. The reason Valdez was established was to provide an “All American Route” for the Klondike gold rushers. When the hopeful prospectors got to Valdez, they found a few tents, and a route that took them over the Valdez glacier, a treacherous trail that could change overnight from a smooth path to one crossed with crevices hundreds of feet deep. Eventually the Army blazed an only barely better trail through the mountains, but some of the prospectors stayed in Valdez, and some came back after their tries at gold mining didn’t work out and started “mining the miners” by building stores and saloons.

Unfortunately, they built their town on the silt of the Valdez glacier run-off, and when the earthquake of 1964 struck, the silt and rocks turned to jello and a massive under-water landslide wiped out the docks, and then the oil tanks caught fire and finished the job off. Eventually, they moved the whole town down the bay to an area that was on bedrock and behind a row of low hills to protect the town when the next “big one” comes along.

The town was basically a fishing town until the oil terminal came in, and now Alyeska is the biggest employer in town. The oil terminal is on the opposite side of the bay from town.

August 6 - Glacier Cruise

Gerry declined to get on a little boat again, so I left him and Gypsy to their own devices and embarked on a wildlife and glacier cruise. It was nice and I got some good shots of eagles, seals and otters, but it wasn’t as good as the Seward cruise. There were too many long traverses where nothing happened and most of the people on the boat took naps. That being said, I was glad I went for the long trip, because the short one just went to Columbia glacier, which is shedding so much ice that it’s impossible to get anywhere near it. After that we went on to the Meares Glacier, which is advancing, so it has very little ice floating around in front of it, and there were harbor seals lounging on the ice floes and napping right at the very base of the glacier face.

An otter just cruising alongside the boat, acting like we weren't even there.

The Columbia ice was even bluer than other glaciers.

This little guy was getting "warm" up on the ice, and he looked so worried that we were going to get too close and make him jump back in the water.

Harbor seals, looking very sad and distrustful.

The Steller Sea lions, on the other hand, were too busy picking on each other to notice us.

The boat got in at 7, so we ate dinner in town and then headed back to the other side of the bay and Cleo. When we went by the stream up the road from our campground, lo and behold, there was a bear fishing for dinner, so we stopped and I got some good shots of him, delicately selecting the appetizer and main course. At last! A bear up close.

August 5 - Valdez

Another fish picture - they are just fascinating.

Apparently the shifts at the oil terminal change at 6 a.m. because there was a steady stream of traffic behind us at 5:30, and at 6:15 going the other way. It’s raining today, and the sky and sea are exactly the same color. The only reason I know there’s a horizon over across the bay is the very faint, barely a shade darker line about the middle of the windshield.

Speaking of the terminal, we see Alyeska trucks all over town, and they proudly have their motto emblazoned on the back of their trucks.

“No One Gets Hurt”

Now, they probably mean that they have a great safety record, and I’m sure they paid some consultant big bucks to come up with something that reflects that devotion to safety. But didn’t they for a minute stop and think that the normal person, reading that and knowing it’s the slogan for an oil company, immediately thinks of it as the second half of a sentence that begins, “Hand over all your money and….?”

Since it was cold and rainy, we did the museum, which was very interesting, and when evening came, we went on another bear hunt, taking Gypsy with us this time. We stopped at the hatchery again, watched the gulls riding their merry-go-round (I swear they just do it for the fun!) and walked down to the shore. Gypsy was not too sure what to make of those strange, splashy things, but she thought they might want to play. She had everyone laughing.

August 4 - Valdez

We moved today from the RV park in town to the other side of the bay just below the oil terminal. There are boondocking sites all along the water, so we have the kind of view we like out our front window and don’t have to listen to the fish cannery trucks sitting in reverse and beeping all night long.


After we got settled, we drove up into the mountains. The smoke from the fires in the Copper River basin had drifted into the pass, so the mountains weren’t as crisp, but still beautiful. We went to Worthington Glacier, which is just about half a mile from the road, and walked out to the end of the paved path. There were lots of people walking right on the glacier but we’re not that daring. We looked at it from a safe distance, enjoyed the waterfall coming out of it and feeding the lake in front of it.


There are waterfalls all along the road, some of them pretty spectacular. Every mountain top has a glacier, so every mountain side has the corresponding waterfall, and when we stopped and got out of the car, we could hear waterfalls in surround sound.

After our day in the mountains, we came back for dinner and more bay and fish watching. We saw three Steller sea lions fishing for salmon near the hatchery, and we waited a long time to see if a bear or two would come to feed, but we gave up about 10:30 without seeing one

August 3 - Valdez

What did I say about these Alaskan mountains? Once again, “impressive” is redefined. The Chugach mountains leading into Valdez are just breathtaking. This area of Alaska is not called “little Switzerland” for nothing! Vista after vista unfolded with every turn. One thing we noted was the poles along the sides of the roads once we got well into the mountains here – they are to guide the snowplows so they stay on the road. And they have to be 20’ tall!

We set up camp and then went to find fish, which we had heard were swarming around here. The first stop was a small stream with a viewing boardwalk where yes, there were pinks spawning beneath our feet. The patterns of rocks and water almost made an elegant abstract of the fish. Then we went across to the other side of the bay to a place called Solomon’s Creek.

There is a fish hatchery there and the fish are guided by a weir into the channel leading into the hatchery. Oh, my goodness, there were a lot of fish! So many there was hardly enough water to contain them. We just stood and watched in awe at not only the quantity of the fish, but the raw determination that drove them again and again into the rush of water leading to the place they most desperately needed to be.


There was a channel along one side of the rapids that the gulls had turned into a ferris wheel for birds. They would fly to the top of the channel and let the current drift them down until they ran into a raft of fish where the current slowed down. Then they’d fly back to the top and do the ride all over again. Those dark areas on each side of the birds aren't rocks - they are thousands of salmon going upstream as the gulls are going down. Along the way the gulls would peck at the fish swimming the opposite direction beside them. It reminded me of those sushi restaurants that have the dishes on a little revolving strip that floats them in front of you for you to choose the ones you want.

I noticed that a whole bunch of gulls on one of the other sandbars all of a sudden swarmed into the air, and then I saw the bald eagle flying in. Most of the gulls decided to go elsewhere, but some of them stayed to protect their scraps.

August 2 - Squirrel Creek

The day dawned bright, sunny and cloudless. We went down to a little café that offered free coffee and wi-fi and had breakfast there. When we got back to the campground, someone said there were two salmon in the creek, so we watched them for a while. No swarms of fish like at Quartz Creek, but these were kings, and about twice the size of the ones we saw in Quartz Creek.

We had planned to drive down to the little town of Chitina (pronounced CHIT-na) down in the Copper River valley, but first went back to the viewpoint on the highway to look at the mountains. Today was truly the Chamber of Commerce photo-op with no clouds at all on Drum and Wrangle and only a smattering of clouds on the third mountain, Stanford. After getting a few good shots of the mountains, we headed to Chitina.


The Copper River is a big, dirty body of water. According to the Roadside Geology of Alaska, the river is eroding away over 700,000 tons of silt a day! No wonder it looks like you could walk across it without getting your feet wet. So it’s amazing that salmon come up this river, and in such numbers that Copper River salmon are almost a breed to themselves and highly prized for the quality of their flesh. Alaskan citizens who have a subsistence permit can set up fish wheels on the river to scoop the fish out of the water for their own use. There were several fish wheels operating, but we never saw a fish caught by one while we sat there and watched.


We came back to Copper Center and had dinner at the Copper Center Princess Lodge. After talking with some of the guests there, we sure are glad we’re doing Alaska on our own schedule instead of the cruise line’s!

August 1 - Squirrel Creek Campground

August 1 – it was two months ago today we drove across the Canadian border and officially started this trek. And we’re still having fun doing it.

We moved all of 32 miles down the road today, from Dry Creek just north of Glenallen to Squirrel Creek just south of Copper Center. It was one of those “let’s spend the night there” whims that lead us to another delightful campground. We’re right next to the creek, and Gypsy thinks it’s heaven because there’s a little offshoot branch of the creek trickling into a pool just a few feet from our door, just perfect for a wading doggie.

The Wrangle mountains are pretty impressive. Just when we think we have the definition of impressive mountains, another range comes into view that ups the ante. The Wrangles are volcanic, the result of the Pacific plate sliding under this part of Alaska. It’s the plate that is going to end up moving all of California up here some millions of years from now. For now though, the mountains are just pushing up higher and higher. Mt. Wrangle itself is the only active volcano, and still blows off a little steam every so often. It’s under a pretty significant glacier though, so most of the energy comes out sideways under the ice. At one of the viewpoints it seemed at first that we could only see clouds, but when we looked through the binoculars we realized that we were actually seeing the bottom two-thirds of the mountains and they were covered with glaciers. Ice, ice, everywhere, all looking like a heavy layer of white frosting slathered all over the mountains.

There’s one little bit of concern that has risen its head. The fireweed is getting awfully close to the top. Some have already reached their apex. And some of those aspen – they must be sick or something. Surely they can’t be starting to turn yellow. I reject that theory completely.