You will all be excited to know we have found a use for the bumpy roads previously reported.
Marlipops and Captain Cautious ( who is still poorly but not poorly bad, thank you all for asking) decided to go to Valdez, well known for the earthquake of 1964 and Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989.
So, in the dirty brown yellow peril, off we set, with Marlipops performing driving duty. The bumpy road shook loose all the rocks and stones and pebbles and boulders from the preceding 1000 miles!
Valdez is 150 miles from our campsite, and with a stop for a pic and a ooh and a ahhh every half hour, it took over 3 hours to get there. We passed so many wonderful blue and grey glaciers, countless waterfalls, tumbling down from the snow on top of the craggy topped mountains. The greenery was everywhere, and Thompson Pass, about 20 miles from Valdez, stunning. It is only 2600 feet or so high, but feels much, much higher because of all the surrounding peaks and ravines.
The 800 mile Alaska pipeline runs to Valdez, and comes over Thompson Pass. While in one of the stores I was watching the tale of the pipeline construction, and the workers interviewed all said that Thompson Pass was the worst place in the world to build a pipeline. They were working at 45 degree angles, in the 40 below temperatures, and even had to build a humungous series of overhead cables and pulleys to get the 10 ton pipe sections in place. Very informative. In places along the road the pipeline is right at the side, so if you need a quick oil change, bring your own cordless drill, and hey presto, instant crude oil!
The town of Valdez is geared for fisherists, hikists and oil terminalists. Not particularly pretty, but ideal as a base if you are into all that active physical stuff. We would have been, but we gave all that up as a new year resolution this year, so we had to sit and eat fish and chips again, watching all those fit type idiots.
We did the touristy shop thing, which was crap, and then, on the way out, went to the local stream to hopefully watch the salmon run, although we had been told it was a bit early.
Well, no one told these salmon the time, coz there was a gazillion of them, all trying to get over the rocks at the mouth of the creek, and then trying to swim upstream. Absolutely fascinating to watch them struggle, get so far, then be hit with a rush of water to end up back where they started. There really were thousands of salmon, and quite a few didn’t make it and were lying washed up on the rocks. There were about a hundred or so seagulls, perched on the underside of the road bridge, and none of them could be bothered to get the dead fish. That is the first time in my life I have seen a seagull too stuffed to eat.
Marlipops and I went right down onto the rocks at the mouth of the creek, where it met the ocean of the bay, to watch the fishermen. After about 20 minutes we decided to go back, and Marlipops looked and asked me which way did we come to get here, coz the tide was on its way in and another 10 minutes and we would have been swimming upstream with the salmon!!
There was even a couple of guys fishing by hand, just scooping the fish out of the water, there were so many of them.
We were about to leave, when we spotted an enormous sea lion bull making his way through the salmon, gorging himself.
He stopped for a while, obviously bloated as well.
Talk about an all you can eat buffet!
There were also several bald eagles hovering about downstream, probably picking up the leftovers.
All in all, one of the highlights of the trip.
On the way back, with the sun at a changed angle, (I wont say going down coz it doesn’t,) the snow on the mountain tops looked totally different from this morning, crisper and brighter.
Wildlife watch today was the eagles, sea otter, red squirrel in the campsite, sea lion, sea gulls, million of salmon, and a yellow deer…….honest, check out the pix.
