VALDEZ

The correct way to say it is Val-deez'. There was some controversy over that, but it was settled. Sometimes I say it correctly. Nobody seems to care.

On the way towards Valdez we traveled along the Matanuska River. This photo was taken east of Palmer. The walkway to the left in the picture was eroded and fenced off.

These mountains are included in the blog simply because they were so different than those we had seen till we got here. Lots of color, and they weren't covered with snow!

Approaching Valdez we came to these falls. The first was called Bridal Veil, the next was Horsetail Falls. Although they were awesome, no big deal was made of them, there were simply a couple of average size pullouts.

Arrived in Valdez August 23. Gertie sits at our home site in the Prince William Sound. This is the very location that an earthquake on March 27, 1964 totally destroyed the town of Valdez. It was determined that the city had been built on unstable ground, and the present town of Valdez is located further along the Sound. There is nothing left of the old town, no buildings, rubble, or monuments. There are a couple signs describing the event. The earthquake was a 9.2, and lasted over 4 minutes, the worst ever in North America. We were driving around looking for a likely place to overnight and came to this area. Nobody around, and very quiet, right on the Sound.

Valdez has an abundance of the freshest snow on earth. It gets more than 300 inches of snow each year in the city! Nearby Thompson Pass gets between 600 and 900 inches annually!!

When we were there it was overcast and drizzly/foggy. At times it would clear a little, briefly, and that was nice. The thing is, we both had such bad colds, we didn't really care much what the weather was. In the background you can see what looks like a ship. At the visitors center they said it was a container loading platform. The person saying that acted like she didn't know what we were talking about when we asked what it was. We kind of think it was a ship.

Valdez is the end of the Alaskan pipeline. This is where they store oil and also load the tankers. There are 18 giant crude oil storage tanks. We were told they averaged a tanker a day but we were there 3 days and never saw one. If the pipeline had to be shut down at anytime the tanks in Valdez would hold the amount that is in the pipeline. 9.18 million barrels. Needless to say this is a glutenous country. If the tanks at Valdez were full, it would only be enough to supply the U.S. for 30 minutes. Here are some quick figures: 8 billion - the cost of the project in the 1970's; 21,000 - the number of people who worked on the pipeline at the peak of construction; 800 - approximate length of the pipeline in miles; 120 degrees Fahrenheit - the temperature of oil as it travels through the pipeline; 48 - the diameter of the pipeline in inches; 31 - the number of people killed during construction. The amount of oil moved through the pipe is slowed considerably, the oil is running out. When it is no longer moving oil, the agreement stipulates that the pipeline must be removed - another costly affair! And one more thing: there is an estimated 26,000 gallons of oil left on contaminated coastline even today, from the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989.

Our next picture is the ship we cruised on. The sound was much smoother here than in Seward. I know we showed you sea otters before but I think these pictures were much better. They are really funny characters. They float around on their backs. We are told they haul up rocks to put on their stomachs and use them to break open the clams or whatever they are feasting on. These were mainly in the harbor areas. The water further out is very deep, too deep for them to dive to the bottom to feed.

Further out in the sound, lazing around on the buoy were the sea lions. Once in a while they would get off the buoy and take a dip, cool off I guess, then climb back on.

We were pretty amazed when we got close to the Columbia Glacier. I think we both thought we would be seeing it up close like we had from Seward. Surprise, surprise. The bay is so full of ice you can only get about 8 miles from it. You can see it in the background but it was a good distance away. The bergs were really beautiful, the blue color. On some you could see the water line where the water hits them when it is high tide. When they are floating out in the bay, they melt more on the part under the level of the water. Then when a lot of the lower part melts they get top heavy and roll over leaving the really pretty blue exposed.

This ship makes the rounds of the fishing boats, buying their fish and bringing it into shore. This enables the small fishermen to continue fishing. Since the season is short it is a big benefit. They don't have to suspend fishing to bring in their catch.

We did find some Orca "Killer" whales on this trip. They were pretty fast and it was hard to get much of a picture of them. They travel up to about 30 mph. While we were out we also saw the Dall's porpoise. They look much like the Orca, just smaller. The fastest of all cetaceans, up to 35 mph. I think you would have needed a movie camera and maybe an underwater movie camera to get a picture of them. They were really fast and loved to get right up under the front of the boat, like they were racing with us.

These next two pictures are at the Salmon Fish Hatchery. You can see some dark areas, those are salmon, hundreds of them. No wonder the gulls are around since the salmon will all be dying. The sign is pretty self explanatory.



When we left Valdez we headed back up the Richardson Highway. Since it had been extremely foggy on the way down it was a nice opportunity to see some of what we had missed on the way down. One thing we saw was the Worthington Glacier. It was just a short hike. You could walk right up to this one. Of course since it is inland there is no calving. Gary wanted to take some home so he got out his trusty knife (Thanks Kim) and chipped off some. He is usually so hot blooded that I volunteered to carry his ice. He didn't argue much, he didn't have gloves. If we see you after we get back home, just ask, he will haul it out of the freezer and show you.

On up the road we found a pleasant spot to spend the night. There seems to always be a view.

Not far from there was the visitors center for the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. We viewed their film and went for a short walk with the Ranger. The weather didn't cooperate though. You could hardly see the mountains at all. The Ranger walked us out to the viewpoints and showed us beautiful pictures. I don't know when they were taken but it was sure a different sight than we saw. The Wrangell mountains include a volcanic field, composed of 12 volcanoes, one of which is still active. Mt Wrangell, with 250 cubic miles of available lava, is the highest and largest active volcano in Alaska. It is 14,163 and growing. 25% of Wrangell-St. Elias is covered by glacial ice. The Average annual snowfall is 50.4 inches with a record annual snowfall of 93.9 inches. There are only 2 roads into the Park, one goes to the old Kennicott Mine and the town of McCarthy and is 61 miles. The other is 42 mile Nabesna Road. Both are mostly dirt and very rough sometimes requiring high clearance vehicles. We passed on both these trips and headed up the Tok Cutoff. We were expecting our mail and some mail order prescriptions. When we arrived it was all waiting except one which didn't arrive until Saturday. The Post Office is not open on Saturday but when I was back in on Friday to see if it had arrived the man at the desk told me if I would come between 11:30 and 12 noon, knock on the door, he would check for me. With the holiday weekend it would have been Tuesday before we could have gotten it if he hadn't been so helpful. That's a small town for you! The next picture is sunset at the spot we found to spend our waiting time. Maybe the wait was worth it, the day we left Tok was beautiful, the sun was shinning and we had two whole days of it. The first evening out of Tok we happened upon Deadman Lake Campground with a boardwalk trail (Tiaga Trail). It took you a quarter mile and was boardwalk to protect the tundra and keep you out of the wet. The next pictures were taken from the viewing platform, across the Lake. We hadn't had any pictures of a sunset since June 21 (Solstis). This park has about 16 small/med size spaces, no fee or utilities. It had a really clean pit toilet. What I remember about this camp is that the temperature was down to 35 degrees at 7 a.m...and that's inside Gertie. We asked at a visitor center just down the road how low it had gotten that night, they thought it was around 23. Our furnace has gone nuts since we last filled with propane. The pilot light won't work...so it can't come on. (Hope to get the new fuel control for it in Haines). There's a limit of 14 days, but we only needed one!

The next day we found some interesting things ahead of us. At one of the road construction stops this KR-2 Kit plane was stopped. Since we had a short wait Gary had the opportunity to talk with the owner a few minutes. He is on his way to Colorado for delivery to the new owner. He had built the plane himself and had flown it a while. He said he could go up to 130 mph, and use 3 gallons of gas an hour. I wish we could get that kind of mpgs.

Gary thinks he had put on some weight this summer, he was big enough to be in two countries at once. Here he stands, half in the US, half in Canada. Just so you know, if you're heading south on the Alaska highway, fill up at the station on the right, before going into Canada. The station on the left is higher priced, and the owner is a real grouch!!!

The mountains showing fresh snow on top are a part of the Wrangell-St. Elias range but this time we are on the other side of them, headed toward Haines. On the second picture you can see the crater.

Isn't this pair of swans pretty? We've noticed several pairs of them, but they are all on their own lake. Well...why not.

Another sight ahead of us was this solar car, one of very few vehicles on the road that have been passed by Gertie.

As we got very close to Haines, along the Chilkat River we found two of these fish wheels working. There was a small pull out by the first one and when I got out to take a picture we saw it catch a fish. When it picks up a fish it automatically flows into a hopper. No one was around to tend it.

Next stop Haines, AK