Coming To Valdez

The road to Valdez, up and over the Chugach Mountains, steep inclines and even steeper declines back down to sea level, was carpeted with dandelions and lupines and the sweet smell of Spring beginning to bloom. Late Spring. Early Summer. Short season whatever you call it. Nights in the 40's, highs in the 60's. Glaciers everywhere. In every direction you look, a minimum of 10 in sight, and many just over the next peak and out of sight. Warm when the wind stops and chilling when the wind whips across the glaciers and down into the valleys. Waterfalls by the hundred as if this landscape needed further punctuation. Valdez, they say, looks a lot like Switzerland. I've never been there, but surely it must. One can stand absolutely anywhere in Valdez and see snow capped mountains, glaciers, and waterfalls in a full 360 degree circle. There is nowhere you can look and NOT see them. No where! One travel ad we saw claimed that some place on earth had to be the perfect place; Valdez is it. Lord, it makes a guy want to yodel.


We are camped within 20 feet or so of Prince William Sound - where the Sound narrows and channels into the small craft harbor, from where all the 6 pack charters depart. I hope to be on one of them soon. Since the salmon have also not arrived here yet, the story of the whole trip so far, the quarry will be halibut. Tides and currents and weather should be right mid week. Gotta break this poor fishing pattern soon. But meanwhile, the scenery is terrific, there's plenty of other things to do and see.
Here's a healthy 80 lb. halibut going under the knife at the cleaning station at the small boat harbor cleaning stations. All fish must be cleaned at specific locations in town. The waste goes into special vats that look more or less like shark cages, which are then towed out to sea and dumped when they are full.
The young lady in the blue coat is a scientist, "Maggie," with Alaska Fish and Game. She measures and weighs each fish brought to the cleaning stations, then afterwards removes the inner ear bones from the halibut and the Rockfish. Those bones are studied for determining the health and age of the catch, which is information used in helping set regulations in the future. After learning the process, I spent some time serving as an assistant (scribe) in the process. I learned a lot and really enjoyed the experience. I hope to do some more of it while we are here. We will have a three week stay here, so there should be plenty of time to do that- and it's a great way to see the catch as it comes off all the boats, and learn about fish I have no experience with, and in many cases, have never even seen before.


In Florida, and just about anywhere else I have ever fished around salt water, it is the gulls and the pelicans that steal the fish off the cleaning tables if you turn your back for even a minute. But this is Alaska, where everything, even the fish steaks, are big. So here the gulls don't do the thieving; here, the eagles do the it. The golden eagles and the bald eagles. Which causes me to ask the question: Is that why they call them "Ea-gulls"? Below is an immature bald eagle that had his eye on a halibut fillet that weighed about 20 pounds. This eagle finally left hungry.


LuLu Belle on the left below.
The next series of shots are from the wildlife and glacier cruise aboard the LuLu Belle. Scheduled for a 5 hour cruise, it ran 6 because we saw so much and Captain Fred made sure we got all we signed on for. In addition to the humpback whales, the Stellar sea lions, the sea otters, the gulls and eagles, we got to see nesting puffins in the caves along the cliffs on the shoreline of one of the islands in the sound. The motion of the boat kept me from getting a good picture, but it certainly was a most interesting venture- as the captain drove that big boat right up to the cliff and into the cave, with little more than a couple inches to spare on either side of the vessel. A bit scary, but exhilarating at the same time.

The noise from the sea lions was simply amazing. There were hundreds of them. I have a few shots, not posted here, of bulls who had been terribly bloodied from their battles over the best females. Isn't that just a guy thing?
Digital cameras are great in many ways, but a quick shutter is not one of them, so getting an "anticipation" shot of a humpback breaching or rising out of the sea is no easy task. This tail shot was difficult as well as many of the whales gave us a good look at their backs but not their tales or flippers.
Icebergs and "calves" from the glaciers are quite beautiful in their own right. They have an uncanny "life" of their own- clinking and rolling and bobbing and weaving like ice cubes in a big glass of water on a hot day. Close to the glacier, they are actually quite musical.




How's this for a tour shot???
Sometimes tiny islands are the best islands.

The Alaskan Pipeline ends at Valdez. The oil is stored in 18 tanks that hold a total of over 500 million barrels of oil. From the tanks it is loaded into double hull tankers and transported to states south of Alaska, most of it to Washington. 500 million barrels of oil? Enough to "run" the United States for about 8 hours. It gives you a sense of how much oil we consume. Prince William Sound is clean now post Exxon Valdez disaster. Very clean- no trace it ever happened, even if you are looking. Nature has restored in short order what many thought could never be corrected. There is even a fish hatchery immediately adjacent to the oil terminal. Fish are fine thank you very much, as are the seas otters, the real barometer of the health of the sound.

On the return trip, permission was granted to ride in the pilot house with the captain. A special treat indeed.

On The Way To Valdez

The village of Talkeetna starts at the only intersection in town and ends about a block later. Still, there is lots of cute and clever things to see along the stroll down Main Street. Why at the intersection alone there’s a building that houses the liquor store, the grocery store, the general store, the town bar, the visitors center, a guide service and the flight taxi. You can get an espresso as well if you like! There’s even an ATM upstairs if you need it.
Down at the end of Main Street, trade your shopping bag for the fishing rod and have a go for early run King (Chinook) Salmon. One had been caught he day before we gave it a try, but, alas, poor fishermen, no nibbles on this day- although we did see one swim on by in defiance!

Heading back through town to the campground we stopped to enjoy the “decorated moose” contest. Very much like the annual “Lobster Decoration Contest” in Rockland, Maine, for festival, here they do up a wooden moose. Visitors can vote for the business that has embellished the best moose of the season.


Yet again, the blessings bestowed upon us by Denali on a clear day gave representation to the reason why many never see it as the clouds and rain rolled right back on in. Once you’ve seen the mountain, you cannot decry the deteriorated weather, especially when a double rainbow reminds you of your previous good fortune.

Headed out of Talkeetna and through Palmer and Glennallen on the way to Valdez for an extended stay, there was time to visit the Musk Ox farm and the nearby Reindeer farm. From the musk ox, comes a wool made form the under hair (qiviut) which, when woven into hats and scarves is 8 times warmer than wool, finer than cashmere - and a whole heck of a lot more rare and therefore expensive. Back from literal extinction in Alaska, the herd has now been brought up to numbers approximating 3500 animals. They are neat!


Got an introduction to reindeer that was quite fun! Sort of a petting zoo for people who no longer believe in Santa Claus. We learned a lot about them, strolled the open fields among them, interacted with them within the parameters given us, and, yes, feed them by hand. Also very neat! Did you know? All of the reindeer who pulled Santa’s sleigh (You know Comet and Cupid, Donner and Blitzen, et. al.)- well guess what…the only reindeer that still carry their antlers in December are Does (ladies, girls, females), so we’re gonna need some serious re-writes on “Twas the night before Christmas….”

The farm had a small herd of elk as well and the largest buck and I made friends over a couple handfuls of long pulled grass from outside the corral. He was a magnificent animal, and he darn near made me want to join the Elk’s Lodge.

Above: a pile of reindeer antlers...

One big Elk!



As I’m putting this post together today a mere one more day’s run to Valdez, I’m a hoping and a praying that the next pictures of anything in the animal kingdom will be FISH! Birds are nice. Mammals are interesting and amusing, maybe even cute. But I NEED FISH!

Here’s the shot of the day- the Matanuska Glacier coming down from the Chugak Mountains on Glennallen Highway just before we pulled into camp for the night. Stable in size for the last 400 years, it’s 4 miles wide at the terminus and averages two miles wide most of its 27 mile long run down from the mountains.

A Blessing From Denali

For two days travel before we reached Denali National Park, the mountain of mystery and awe was possible to view- but only if conditions were perfect, and only if you knew where to be looking, and only if you were damn lucky! In truth, a scant 20% of the people that come looking for Denali, the Great One, the Tall Mountain, will ever even catch a glimpse of the majesty that supports the legend. And so, for two days, as our agenda drew us closer and closer to the mighty mountain, we tried and failed to see even a hint of Mt. McKinley, finally resigning ourselves to the sad fact that the odds may catch up with us and deny us the sighting we had longed for as we approached. Upon arrival to our camp site about 10 miles north of the park, but still 70 miles or more from the mountain, the conditions boded poorly for us as it was overcast and freezing cold and wind a blowing at gale forces. Such is the weather around Denali- a mountain of 20,000 feet elevation that it creates its own weather year around and it- not the tour guides nor anyone else decides who sees it and who goes away disappointed with the journey. So ready to face the worst we turned in for the night, such as it is, and awoke the next morning to sun already shining and a relatively clear but not perfect day. Maybe we would get lucky.
We drove the 15 miles allowed for private vehicles in the direction of the mountain. I snapped a photo over Cathedral mountain, where Denali, if she was willing, would appear in a robe of white some 3000 feet thick- but it was not to be. Resigned, we drove back out of the park, in the hopes that our scheduled 8 hour tour the following day would bring us some good fortune.
The next morning we arose at 4 AM. There were some clouds of concern, but nothing to do but hope for the best so off toward the mountain we went. Two cow moose, one with two calves, caught our interest along the 10 mile traverse to the park entrance; maybe this was a good omen. The tour took us 62 miles from the entrance to the park, across the Tundra, toward the mountain. Along the way, foxes chasing birds in the brush, Ptarmigans, like pheasant along the side of the “fit for mountain goat” road, much of the way. Dall Sheep dotted the high mountains along the route in large numbers, Caribou crossing the Tundra plains far below in the valleys by the river, snow shoe hares and ground squirrels by the hundreds nearly everywhere you looked. Two Grizzly Bears, a long way off, definitely hooking up for mating season which is just now beginning- but still a thrill in the binoculars and with the digital zoom on the camera to prove they were in fact out there. But would the mountain appear. At the first possible place to see it- a resounding no, but the tour driver expressed hope that the clouds of this day were low, and that we could drive past them and still have a chance. And when push came to shove, there it was! Or at least part of it- the north peak- the second highest peak of the mountain poked is head out through the clouds that shrouded much of the mountain. The base was clearly evident, the peak was playing coy. Still, it was a “silencer” for the group and we stood in wonder of a mountain that claimed the landscape as its very own, without even showing its true hand. The long day ended and we slept, knowing we had seen Denali. We were not disappointed, but we were left wanting for more if that could possibly be.
Today we traveled from Denali, National Park, through Denali State Park, to Talkeetna, where the rivers of the mountain glaciers begin to merge to form the salmon fishery that is legendary to Alaska. The fish have just started to show up here so maybe we will not have time to catch the early king run this far north. But a beautiful rainbow trout presented itself at X-Y Lake. (NO! I’m not trying to hide the name of the water where the fish was caught- that IS the name of the lake!) The trout, like the first graying hooked a day or two ago was released. My sacrificial offering to Mother Nature for providing me the opportunity of a lifetime. But no more Mr. Nice Guy. Unless I fish catch and release waters (which are prevalent here) the next big fish will provide nourishment for the body as well as the soul. I’m getting powerful hungry for salmon.
But back to the mountain:
Today we traveled 160 miles. You would think the mountain would be long gone from the landscape…and towering above the rest of the Alaska Range and tall pines only in our minds. You would be wrong. The day proved out to be cloudless, or nearly so. The almost perfect day. And Denali loomed larger and larger and more powerful at every turn in the road. It has never taken me so long to drive that distance in my life. Not because the road was bad ( it was excellent) but because it was necessary to stop and take another picture with every new view of the mountain that presented itself. To each other, and to all those fellow travelers who pulled over like we did, and leap frogged with us all day long, we patted our backs in congratulations. We all understood we had received the blessing of the mountain. We all understood we had been granted the best view the mountain has to offer. Perfect clarity- all three peaks! We all understood that a once in the life opportunity had come our way. Four out of every five days, the mountain is totally invisible to the hopeful viewer. Four out of five are sent away without out seeing any of the mountain. Others are sent away with a mere glimpse of the base. Still others with a peek at a peak- or one peak of the three- but we had it all today, and we had it all day long. And still do tonight. No other geographical feature I know of any where in the world dominates its landscape like Denali. From hundreds of miles away- it’s still the biggest game in town. Or gone.
I can’t show you all the pictures now, though I feel like I want to; here are some shots from yesterday and today:

Denali SHOULD be visible over Cathedral Mountain from this vantage point 15 miles into the park. As you can see, it's not a bad day. But NO mountain showing.

Look closely at the top of the cloud. That's the north peak of the mountain Denali poking through just a tad. Clicking on the photo, like always to enlarge, will help. Those "other" mountains in front of Denali (without the snow cover) are the same BIG mountains of the Alaska Range we have been posting for some time now. They are dwarfed by Denali! It takes your breath away- altitude or no....
Caribou antlers...
Moose antler...

A Raven's nest in Denali Park. A rare find, these birds nested before the park opened for the season...or they never would have been so near the road and the traffic that comes with it. These chicks are just about ready to take flight. Good timing for us!
These two yellow "dots" in the grassy area mid photo are grizzles caught with my 10X digital zoom lens. Though they are nearly a mile off, they were still mighty impressive in the binoculars! I confess to being happy I took this out the bus window. I've read all the "what to do if you come across a grizzle" and ,my dear, I'd rather not.
At every turn in the road, Denali presented another face....