Valdez, Alaska

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265 miles from Palmer to Valdez.  I left Palmer at 7:15am and it was 44 degrees.  

There was beautiful scenery on the drive today.  I stopped a couple of times to take photos.  The first glacier is the Matanuska Glacier.  

I visited Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.  Here I listened to a park ranger talk about the national park and the mountains that surround it.  There was also a display area, and we watched a movie.  We tried to see Mount Wrangell through the clouds.  They also had a fish wheel on display.

As I continued my journey into Valdez, I stopped to see the Worthington Glacier.  

There were also two sets of falls.  The first single fall is called the Horsetail Falls.  The second double fall is called the Bridal Veil Falls.  Both were beautiful.

This drive into Valdez was so scenic.  My RV parking spot had a great view of the mountains. 

We were a short walk to the waterfront area.  10 of us enjoyed dinner and good conversation.  After dinner we watched the local fishermen cleaning their catch of the day.

As I was walking back to the RV park, I recognized a young woman whom I had been watching her videos online for a while now.  Her videos were mostly of her cooking meals on a wood stove at her family’s off grid homestead.  This summer she took a job working on a local tour boat and is not living on the homestead. I stopped and talked with her for a little bit.

Just a few miles outside of Valdez is the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery and Fish Weir.

The fish hatchery was started in order to ensure that wild salmon return each year to increase the harvest of sport and commercial fisheries in Valdez.  

Each year they release 250 million pink salmon fry and 1.8 million Coho salmon smolts.

Each year salmon return to the hatchery and swim up the fish ladder. 

Because this area has so many salmon there is also wildlife. Bears, Eagles, Sea Gulls, Sea Lions and Sea Otters can often be seen in search of a meal. 

I visited this area twice during our time in Valdez and both times I saw black bears, sea lions and tons of birds.  Of course, the salmon are so thick that it looks like you could walk on them.  

I also enjoyed a visit to the Valdez museum where I learned more about theGood Friday  1964 earthquake.  The earthquake measured 9.2 and lasted nearly five minutes.  

The earthquake caused an underwater landslide and tsunami that destroyed the town.  

There is an “Old Valdez Town” area that can be visited.  There are informational signs to be read but there are no surviving buildings.

Check out the price of gasoline in Valdez!
An excursion included in our tour was a trip on Stan Stephens tour boat.  This was a glacier and wildlife tour of Prince William Sound.  We left Port Valdez and traveled through Valdez Arm and to the Meares Glacier.
 
We saw lots of wildlife on this trip.  Wildlife included a bear, lots of birds, eagles, sea otters, Steller sea lions, Orca Killer whales and I am sure I am missing something.   
 
The views all around the Prince William Sound were beautiful.  It was a chilly day but sunny.
 
We motored our way up the fjord toward the Meares Glacier.  As we got closer you would see more ice chunks/ice burgs floating in the water that had broken off from the glacier.   We were lucky to see calving of the glacier.  When the chunks of ice fall to the water it makes a loud banking noise.

The next stop is back to Tok, Alaska for one night.