Valdez, AK to Kenny Lake, AK

We left Allison Point Campground this morning, and before heading back north, we stopped in town to take on some fuel.  The service station at Airport Road is the least expensive in the area and $.10 lower than in town, but still not what I would call a good price.  We had to go slow getting out of their lot as it has a lot of potholes in it.  We headed north on the Richardson Highway and stopped at Worthington Glacier which is at about milepost 29.  Here are 5 photos taken there…it still wasn’t too easy to get around there as there is still lots of snow on the walking trail.  It might be better for the next group as a group of young men wanting to hike on the glacier took the snow shovel and offered to actually use it to clear some trails.

 

 

 

 

 

At milepost 82.5, we headed east on the Edgerton Highway toward the Wrangell Mountains.

 

It wasn’t too long before Ken spotted this black bear.  It didn’t pose for photos too long before going back into the trees.

 

 

We got situated in our campsite, then took care of some of the household work that stacks up.  Before dinner, we drove up the Old Edgerton Highway to the Richardson Highway, then south to the Edgerton Highway and back to camp.  Ken pointed out this unusual trailer he saw on the way to camp earlier today.  It appears to be a single wide mobile home encapsulated with rocks attached as though they were bricks.  I guess it must be for the insulation factor.  While out on our drive, we also saw a trumpeter swan.

And with that, we are back at the RV for dinner and relaxing.

 

A Day at the Museums–Valdez, Alaska

We headed to Valdez shortly before noon to get some mail sent off at the post office and to have lunch at the Alaska Halibut House.  Our GPS didn’t want to find a post office any closer than 90+ miles, so we decided to have lunch first.  We both had the cod fish and chips and it was good…sorry, no photos as we were too busy eating.  After our meal, we found the post office and drove to the Remembering Old Valdez Exhibit.  This museum has several  scale models of the town as it appeared prior to the 1964 earthquake that was 8.6 on the Richter scale and 9.2 on the Moment Magnitude Scale.  This photo is of a 1921 Ford Model T Chemical Fire Engine.

Attached to this jeep, is a saw (without blade attached) used to cut lumber.

After going through the exhibits, we watched a 37 minute film called Between the Glacier and the Sea.  It featured some live film taken by a camera on The Chena, a ship at the docks in Valdez when the earthquake hit.  There were also documentaries from various people who lived in town at the time who talked about their experience during the quake.  When it was determined that the old town of Valdez was not safe, the people took on the project to move it to a new location four miles away within 3 years.  That feat was accomplished in 2 years, and what was left of old town Valdez was destroyed by fire or other means.  Rather than rebuilding a home, some people chose to move their houses to the new location as did some businesses.  The Eagles lodge pictured below was moved from old town Valdez.

Our next stop was the Valdez Museum in town.  A purchase of a ticket to visit one museum covers you at the next museum also if visited within a few days.  At the Valdez Museum, we were greeted by their curator outside the building in the shade of a boat.

Here is the boat shading the curator…on the left is another old relic (not necessarily belonging to the museum )

The information below is about the job of a pig on the Alaska Pipeline.  The next photo is of the actual pig.

 

The museum had this rare mount of a North Pacific Fur Fish.

Without going into a lot of detail, the Valdez Museum has exhibits covering the time frame from the early natives (Athasbascans, Inuits, etc.) in the area up to modern times including the gold rush, 1964 earthquake and Exxon Valdez oil spill.  We found both museums to be worthy of a visit.

Glacier and Wildlife Tour from Valdez to Columbia Glacier

This morning I called and asked about the times and available spaces on the glacier and wildlife tour which was one of our 2 for 1 coupons in the Alaska Toursaver book.  It looked like it was going to be a nice day, so we set it up for today and got ready to go.  When we arrived at their ticket office, we still had time to walk around so we checked out things around the harbor.  The photo below is of the harbor master.

Ken thought that The Fat Mermaid was a good name for a business.

Our boat left the marina shortly after noon, and one of the first sights was the Alaska Ferry at it’s dock.

Our first wildlife sighting while on the boat wasn’t very far from the marina and was this raft of 11 sea otters.

Here’s a closer view of one of them.  Doesn’t he look relaxed?

Approximately in the center of this picture is our motorhome looking very alone at Allison Point Campground.  To the right is the start of the Alaska Pipeline terminus.

Alaska Pipeline terminus with oil tanker, Polar Star, filling up.

Stellar sea lions resting on buoy, and there’s no way they’re going to let the one in the water join them.

Columbia Glacier is in the background and numerous ice chunks floating in the water close to us.

Close to 400 stellar sea lions are located here.

And here is a humpback whale.

As we’re headed back toward the marina, the oil tanker we saw earlier at the Alaska Pipeline terminus is now being guided out of the bay.

A humpback whale blows.

It’s changed over the years, but this is the site of the original gold mine in Valdez that took out over 64,000 ounces of gold.  Wouldn’t that have been nice at today’s gold prices!

A couple of scenic waterfalls as we get closer to the marina.

And in about the center of this photo is a bald eagle in a tree.

We didn’t get too see near as much wildlife as we would have liked, but it was a very enjoyable day.  Tomorrow we plan to go into town to tour the museum as we didn’t see that the last time we were in Valdez.

 

Sourdough Creek BLM Campground to Valdez, Alaska

This is our campsite at Sourdough Creek BLM Campground where we spent last night and started our travels from today.  The trip would be just under 150 miles to Valdez.

We stopped at the Wrangell – St Elias National Park Visitor Center to get a photo of the Wrangell Mountains in the distance.  We had a beautiful day for the photo.

How’s this for a close-up of a bald eagle?

After spending some time at the visitor center, we continued on our way and stopped at a turn out by Willow Lake for lunch.  What a fantastic view!

Before getting to Valdez, we took a left on Dayville Rd to Allison Point Campground.  From where we’re parked we can view the ending point of the Alaska Pipeline.

Apparently, the fishing isn’t good at this time, so we seem to have the entire campground to ourselves so far.  We took advantage of that, and parked sideways along the bay.

This is our view across the bay.

Tomorrow we’ll probably be checking into the glacier and wildlife cruise that is available here through our Alaska Toursaver Coupon Book.

Wildlife sightings for today included:  2 trumpeter swans, 1 caribou, 2 bald eagles (in addition to the photo above), and 2 (roadkill) porcupines.

Tok, AK to Big Delta, AK and then the Plans Changed

According to the plan, our mail had arrived at the Tok post office and we would be on our way today.  There are so many beautiful mountain views in Alaska.  This one is along the Alaska Highway as we headed toward Delta Junction.

This is the Robertson River as we were crossing the bridge and the Alaska Range is in the background.  The ice hasn’t broken up completely yet, and there are some very pretty shades of blue in the ice.

We passed a sign pointing to Jan Lake Rd.

We made our planned stop at Delta Meat and Sausage and picked up some buffalo, reindeer and elk sausage.

We arrived at Rika’s Roadhouse where we ate our lunch and talked about possibly continuing on to North Pole, AK.  We had watched an episode of Guy Fieri’s Diners Drive-In’s and Dives that featured North Pole and Fairbanks area cafes and thought it would fun to try some of them out.  We checked out our Passport America book and there is an RV park in North Pole that would be a good place for a couple of nights.  Following lunch, we walked around the grounds at Rika’s Roadhouse and took several photos, but I’m just posting this one of the actual roadhouse.

Yesterday I had sent an email to our friend Don who had driven the Dalton Highway from Fairbanks about 3 years ago to ask some questions.  He called us as we were wandering around at Rika’s Roadhouse and suggested we would be better off waiting for warmer weather in August to try that trip.  Considering that, our original plans went south and so did we as we are now traveling toward Valdez.  Not too far south of Donnelly Creek Recreation Site, we looked out and saw this herd of  bison.  We counted at least 27 of them.

A little further down the road was view of Black Rapids Glacier.  It is now retreating and very little ice is visible.  It advanced more than 3 miles during the winter of 1936-37 and was nicknamed Galloping Glacier.

About 5 miles before our new planned destination we saw a caribou.  The bugs on the window don’t make for a very good picture.

 

There was road work for the 11 or so miles before our stop and we wanted to inquire about camping at Sourdough Roadhouse.  With all of the construction going on, it was no surprise to see their camping area filled with workers.  We went in anyway and asked about dry camping in their lot.  Due to more construction vehicles coming in, he suggested going over the bridge to the Sourdough Creek BLM Campground.  We enjoyed a dinner at the roadhouse, then continued to the BLM campground and found a nice large pull through site for the night for $6.00 with our senior card.

Our wildlife sightings for the day included:

snowshoe rabbits – 2

moose – 3

bison – 27 +

porcupine – 1

caribou - 1

8/21/2009 - Valdez, AK

We left Kenny Lake and headed to Valdez for 3 nights. We stopped to see the Worthington Glacier on the way.

This is Bridal Veil Falls.

Horsetail Falls

After getting set up, we drove around the area. The next 2 photos are of the small boat harbor in town.

We took the Dayville Road and stopped at Abercrombie Creek to watch the salmon spawning. There seems to be hundreds of fish in small areas.

A little further down the road, there were times where we could see a dozen or more harbor seals which we're sure are really enjoy the quantities of salmon coming back to spawn.

This is a photo of the weir dam with the Solomon Fish Hatchery in the background. The salmon coming back to this area started their lives in the hatchery.

There must be millions of fish trying to get back to where they started life.

On the way back to the RV, we stopped at a USFS visitor center and fish spawning boardwalk.

Later that evening, we enjoyed a steak dinner (including salad, garlic bread, corn on the cob and baked potato) at the Valdez Elks lodge. They open it to the public between Memorial Day and Labor Day. It was a very busy place and we heard later that there were about 150 dinners served that night.