Tripping with MikenJudy 2012: Valdez, AK

Our next adventure took us to Valdez, AK. We spotted a mother moose and her little one crossing the highway in front of us, but they were way tooooo fast for any picture taking! Our first stop was Matanuska Glacier (again). It looked different than our first visit since the sun was shining directly on it and the ice was glistening. Our next stop was the visitor’s center at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the largest one in the system, 13.2 million acres in size. It is as big as six Yellowstones and contains nine of the highest peaks in the United States. We viewed a movie and saw many exhibits. For many, many miles we saw a beautiful mountain ahead of us, which we found out was Mt. Drum.

On the way to Valdez we stopped at the Worthington Glacier viewing area where we walked to a viewpoint to see the glacier and waterfalls. The one problem you have in Alaska is realizing how large everything is since most of the times there is nothing for size comparison. Thank goodness a tourist wearing a red shirt, whose elevator did not go to the top floor, hiked out to the edge of the waterfalls where it is posted not to go to and we got him in our picture. The glacier is so large that he appears as a tiny red dot.

Several times from the road as we traveled, we saw the Alaska pipeline. It goes from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez and is 800 miles in length.

After setting up at the campground and having dinner we took off to Solomon Gulch Hatchery where we watched a bear scooping salmon from the river. Most of his catches were discarded since they were male and didn’t have any eggs. A true gourmet diner! There were many dead fish in the water since they were trapped there at low tide. There was a smelly odor in the air! Yuck! Heading back to the rig we stopped at a water fall and a salmon viewing area where we saw salmon laying their eggs at the edge of the water.

At 11:00 a.m. the next day we were picked up at the campground office by a little bus to take us to Stan Stephens Glacier and Wildlife Cruise at noon. Traveling Prince William Sound, our destination was the Columbia Glacier. In Port Valdez we went by the Trans Alaska Pipeline Terminal where there were many storage tanks for the oil piped in from the North Slope and put into tankers for delivery to the “Lower 48”. An average of 52 tankers dock in Valdez every month.

We saw glaciers of all sizes along the way. We also saw Black-Legged Kittiwakes, Tufted Puffins, a Bald Eagle, Steller Sea Lions, Sea Otters, Harbor Seals, and Orca tails. The scenery was unbelievably beautiful. Our route took us around Heather Island into Columbia Bay and there we went through the broken off ice ‘sculptures’ and finally arrived to see the last of Alaska’s tidewater glaciers to retreat. In 2002 it had retreated for a distance of 7.5 miles, leaving approximately 18 miles to go before reaching bedrock on shore. We were lucky to be able to get as close to the glacier as we did.

Before leaving Valdez we purchased some more fresh sockeye salmon and halibut.