Valdez AK, oil, bears, salmon, oh-my.

We leave Palmer in another light rain for the port city of Valdez, a 270-mile drive that seems likely to be grueling.

We are traveling today with Larry and Martha.  Well, not with just L&M; when you travel with them, you are also traveling with their dog and two cats.

The scenery is nice the first few miles, and then turns spectacular for the rest of the way.  The sun glistens off the huge Matanuska Glacier.  The four of us and their dog Murphey take a mile hike at a viewpoint, noticing that this glacier lies relatively flat in a valley unlike the vertical glaciers terminating in water we’ve been seeing.   In the parking lot, a Princess Cruise bus is getting ready to depart; the driver stands at the door with a bladder of a clear liquid, telling passengers to put down their cameras and open their hands so he can squirt them, “we don’t want anyone getting sick”.

Matanuska Glacier

Driving on we see no animals but many hunters – caribou or moose season just opened, and it looks reckless.  There is little vegetation and many empty utility trailers suggesting many hunters in a relatively small area, bounding about on quads, weapons at hand.

We have lunch at a roadhouse popular with hunters featuring 25-cent coffee and, like many places in Alaska, a room full of mounted dead animals.  Continuing on, we again see the Alyeska pipeline, confirming we must be getting close to Valdez, its southern terminus.  Most of our travel today is between 1000 and 2000 feet elevation.  The mountains, though not high, are gorgeous and spotted with snow and small maybe nameless glaciers.   We come to a seemingly minor summit and are awed by the views, including the huge Worthington Glacier.  Two pick-up trucks are visible on a point maybe a quarter mile below us, the image looking made for a Ford or Chevy sales brochure.

The pipeline reappears then goes underground for the last 18 miles into Valdez. 

The Jones' pass over a typical road transition in the area.

Two lovers enjoy the view, including a couple pick-up trucks to the left.

Bridal Veil Falls on the Valdez approach.

This approach to Valdez has brought us unexpected beauty, saying much about our ignorance of Alaskan geography.  As we drive into Valdez we pass a sign pointing to the old city, mostly destroyed in the 1964 earthquake killing locally over 30 people, including many kids.  Most were gathered on the wharf to greet an arriving freighter when the quake hit.  The wharf shook and the ship shook, banging in to each other; 3 died on the ship, the balance as the wharf collapsed.  The city has bee rebuilt in a more sheltered location. 

It is cold, and there is a solid cloud cover and a light drizzle.  The minimalist downtown is unattractive.  Not very welcoming at all.

The pipeline was constructed after the earthquake.  I expect to see oil tank fields and offshore supertankers, but the supertankers seem to be elsewhere, at least I don’t see them. The pipeline route has been very accessible previously, but here it terminates, properly, in a secure and foreboding looking area posted with FBI signs.  Since 9/11 tours have not been permitted.  (Later we learn oil flows are now so low Valdez receives only one supertanker every couple weeks.  The pipeline is at less than a third of its capacity.)

The oil terminus and tank farm is behind the sign.

My expectation is that Valdez is all oil, but tourism also turns out to be big.  There are many opportunities to fish, tour glaciers, hunt, and view wildlife. 

The downtown consists of large RV parks on pot-holed course gravel, some civic buildings, a couple gas stations, a Safeway, an outfitting store, some small hotels and motels, three museums, fishing and tour docks, and very casual eating and drinking spots.  There is one McDonalds, but otherwise I spot no fast food joints.

After eating in camp we drive around the inlet trying to spot the rumored bears.  The shore is dotted with the occasional fisherman.  RVs and pick-ups are scattered along the edge, and across the road are more RVs and tent campers – the latter parked next to recently posted signs warning of bears in the area, stay in your vehicles.

We see maybe 20-30 people in a group on the bay side of the highway and pull over to see what is going on.  A creek empties here, and as this is spawning season the area is chocked with single-minded salmon.  For reasons we don’t understand the route to the creek is blocked by vertical metal bars, and thousands of mature salmon are bashing against the bars trying impossibly to get up stream.  Salmon in death throes lie in the shallow spots, seagulls and harbor seals feasting.  Signs alert to bears in the area, but we see none.  Just thousands of salmon ending their lives in exhaustion, apparently without spawning.

The creek above the hatchery.

We finally spot a sign that says these are hatchery-raised salmon that have returned after 2-3 years to spawn.  The creek does not have the capacity to handle them, so they are blocked as they might damage the upstream power plant.  The heartier and luckier salmon run a nearby gauntlet of gates and get to die in the hatchery, where artificial spawning takes place.  It is still hard to understand all this waste.  (Later we are told the fish we are seeing have already spawned, but we are not certain.)

We leave and explore the inland side, which has narrow strips of water paralleling the road, backed by dense forests.  Like all of the water around here, this has the glacial look, grey-green and opaque 2-3 inches below the surface.  The water swirls with salmon, some occasionally breaking the surface with a splash. 

We spy a black bear fishing, and later a couple cubs.  The bears are quite selective and lazy, effortlessly scooping up salmon, which often look dead.  A quick bite and most of the fish is discarded, uneaten.  Sometimes a bear will dash into the water and retrieve a salmon but these fish are also quickly abandoned.  Eventually something seems to click and a bear disappears into the woods, the favored salmon firmly clasped in jaws.  (In camp the next night, a fellow that has been coming here for 21 years tells me the bear is squeezing the females for the roe, and rejecting the males.)  

SoCal goes bear hunting.

A Study in Fireweed

Fireweed grows wild in many places and has been especially abundant on our trips to Newfoundland, the Yukon (floral emblem of the territory), and Alaska.

It is one of the first plants to come back after fires or clear-cuts.

We are quite conscious of it on these long trips as a marker of time.  As the saying goes,

"When the Fireweed turns to cotton,

the summer is soon forgotten."

The above photosd are mostly from the Homer area, around August 16th.  Now, late August, the Fireweed is more sparse and going white.  Time to start turning toward home.

Aug 25th near Valdez.

Palmer AK is a Fair town

Palmer is a two-night stand.  My GFI circuit, which most importantly powers the refrigerator, is out, possibly because of yesterday’s rain.  I waste a lot of time working on it and finally use an extension cord to connect my refrigerator to an alternative circuit.  If worse comes to worse, the refrigerator can also work off propane.

We go the state fair with Mike and Jane but accidentally get there an hour-and-a-half early and have to kill time with our 2^nd breakfast of the day at a coffee shop across the street.

The fair itself differs from the California State Fair mainly in the commercial exhibits.  Here, there is a lot of emphasis on quad ATVs, fishing boats, log trimming machines, and other such things big in Alaska.  Not much on farm animals, but an interesting area where farms are competing on how big they can grow produce such as rutabaga, lettuce, radishes, etc.  I expect the food vendor choices to be worse that in California but there are some extremely tasty selections – Marcia has a salmon quesadilla, and I have a Reuben sandwich without the sauerkraut.  We have a good time.

We dance at Anchorage's Costco

Today our route takes us 190 miles in a light rain, off the Kenai Peninsula and back through Anchorage to Palmer AK. 

The Alaska State Fair is going on in Palmer and we decide to attend.  We are told Costco has tickets for half-price so several of us drive to the Anchorage Costco on our way to Palmer. 

The Costco parking lot is not large and is crowded (it is about noon), and three of us arrive simultaneously trying to park our roughly 46’ long truck/trailer combinations.  This is difficult in the best of circumstances but this Costco has narrow aisles and tight turns, so we have to dance about to find adequate space.  Our goal is always to park where we interfere the least with others, and they in turn we hope will not interfere with us.  It is very easily for a cars to come along and grab a spot, not knowing they have blocked our only practical exit route.

Parked, we go inside only to find Costco ceased selling tickets the day the fair opened.  No trip to Costco is wasted, however, and Marcia buys two tops, I buy more coffee, Larry and Martha replace their GPS that routes them across bodies of water without need of bridges, Claudia and Barry buy some calcium, and we all have lunch.

Arriving later at our Palmer campground I find my trailer GFI circuit is dead, and the GFI won’t reset.  This happened two years ago and the fault was in an outside plug full of metal shavings left by the factory.  This time I’m hoping the day’s rain caused the problem and as things dry out it will clear, at least until the next rain.  (We’ve developed two leaks.) 

Palmer is at the base of more magnificent mountains and a glacier. There is hardly a place in Alaska that doesn’t have a great view.  View fatigue hasn’t hit us yet, but I think it has probably hit some of our fellow carvanners.   It is highly unusual for a caravan this size (38 rigs) to hold together on this long a trip without losses caused by illness, family crises, fatigue, collapsed spirits, conflicts, or equipment breakdowns.  But here we are - still 38 rigs.

Reminiscent of Newfoundland, a local development official greets us in the campground garage to highlight the area.  He and one person in our group are in short-sleeve shirts - the rest of us are cold.  It is lightly drizzling.

Exploring Soldotna AK

Today begins with a 9 AM hike to the river, led by the RV park’s young owner and two little dogs that look like they could get lost in the woods, or eaten by squirrels.

We leave the campground on a well-worn fishing trail, passing a field on the right that has swine anxious to be fed, alpacas wandering about, and maybe five horses lying on their sides.  In a distant corner there are three old concrete trucks the owner uses for turning and mixing compost – a bad idea, he says, not enough capacity. 

We pass a few horses and a lagoon that is the water supply for the campground; the combination may partially explain the yellow look of the piped campground water. 

Next is a large barn where the owner’s father first built his cabin, long ago torn down.  Scattered everywhere are old trucks and cars, a toilet, two satellite dishes, some cars and vans that look like they might still run, drilling pipe – all the kinds of stuff we found scattered around houses in Barrow.  Alaskans, native or not,  just don’t throw anything out.

Our walk continues through the woods, leaves glistening with morning moisture.  We descend a steep part where one hiker falls unhurt, and climb up the other side.  Colorful mushrooms occasionally mark the trail edges.  Suddenly we see a well-built log cabin with a sod roof, and a tree rooted at the edge growing vertically maybe 15’.  The cabin was built by the patriarch for his wife, who always wanted a cabin in the woods; it is now rented out to tourists that want to pretend rustic. 

We crunch on and soon arrive at the swiftly flowing Kenai River.  It shouldn’t be a surprise to see two boats of fishermen here, but after our quiet walk it is.  Somebody points above us and we are reminded again about the uniqueness of Alaska.  A couple large bald eagles, untroubled by us or the fishermen, glare down.

On the hike back we take a slightly different route and the park owner points out the remains of a maybe 600-year-old native home.  He says there are probably 30 other homes like this on his land because of the proximity to the river and lagoon, but they aren’t as easily recognized as this one.

To a Californian with a fractional acre lot, today’s hike is interesting both for what we saw, and the fact that in hiking .8 miles one way we only left the family’s 80 acre holdings at the very end. 

Back in camp Marcia and I take a drive to a Soldotna museum where homestead cabins from the late 1940s have been collected for display.  In 1947 the government allowed homesteading here, giving preference to soldiers mustered out after the war.  Most of the settlers were young and from the lower-48 with no wilderness skills, and this is Alaska.  It was a 10-mile hike to here back then.  Our guide was born here and is very proud of herself and her homesteading parents.  Their success has been the motivation for this very fine museum and tour.

That evening we go to the park-hosted salmon dinner on the view deck, with a couple caribou visible in the distance.  Nice.