The Kenai area, Seward, and Valdez are wonderful places – you can’t beat them for scenery and animals. The weather is another issue, but….there’s nothing we can do about that!
In Seward we stayed about 6 miles from town at the Stony Creek RV Park – and what a neat place it was. Our first evening we spent much of our time just outside the RVs watching a pair of adult eagles and their two young ones flying along the river and perching on the trees. The second night Gordie and I took a walk at 10PM (still very light here) and saw a number of folks along the river bank – to our amazement there was a mother grizzly and her 2-year old cub crossing the river and walking along the road on the other side. WOW. It doesn’t get better than that.
While in Seward we went to the Sealife Center – partially funded after the Exxon Valdez accident. There is lots of information on the spill, its affect on the sea life in the area, and the efforts at recovery.
We went on a 6-hour cruise that was wonderful - We saw and ‘heard’ the Holgate Glacier calving; saw puffins and lots of other seabirds, porpoises, and a couple of humpback whales.
We left Seward and drove through Anchorage (lots of fun, as they are doing lots of road construction on the highway through town) and on to Palmer just for the night. We walked around town a bit, but were glad we hadn’t planned to spend extra time there.
Then it was on to Valdez. We hadn’t planned to go to Valdez, but several folks we met along way said they really enjoyed their time here, so we did some rearranging and made time to spend 3 days. And we are very glad we did. The Glenn Highway from Palmer to Glenallen is often narrow and winding. They are doing construction along a 5-mile section and we had to wait half an hour. As we stood outside the RVs visiting, across the road trotted two moose. The flagger told Gordie that this stretch of highway is a heavily used moose crossing and many of them get killed each year (they are dumb and don’t know to avoid cars).
The scenery as we dropped from the mountains into Valdez was beautiful, even though there was a heavy cloud layer across the mountain tops. There are glaciers on all the mountains. We stopped at two huge and magnificent waterfalls (Bridal Veil Falls and Horsetail Falls) – interesting that they have the same names as those along the Columbia River near Portland.
Valdez is a cute fishing village that happens to also be the terminus for the 800 mile long Prudhoe Bay to Valdez oil pipeline. Because of the pipeline ending there, there are 18 enormous tanks to store the oil until the tankers haul it to the states. Our information was that 52 tankers a month come into Valdez on Prince William Sound to load oil on board.
We went on a cruise here as well (thanks to our Alaska 2-for-1 tour saver books, we went for half price) on a Stan Stephens cruise. We had a very different experience here and were very glad we decided to do another cruise. As we headed into Prince William Sound we were told about the oil storage facility and the tankers, as well as the new procedures and equipment put into play since the Exxon Valdez spill. We also watched fishermen setting their nets to collect the silver salmon that are now running. The fishing trawlers fill their holds and then save time and gas by unloading into larger vessels rather than going into the harbor to unload each time. Then when they are done for the day, the fish processing facility has their checks ready for them.
On this cruise we saw wonderful displays by Orcas and Humpbacks. We saw Seal Lions on a ‘haul out’ – a beach where they go to hang out, but not used for breeding or calving. We saw more puffins and otters. And eagles – as the captain would slowly cruise by the islands and mainland, you could look up in the trees and see the white heads of the eagles in the trees.
And we saw Columbia Glacier – different from most glaciers. You can’t see the glacier because as it moves toward the sound, it pushes off large ice bergs which get stuck on the bottom. So there are miles of icebergs in front of the glacier. Eventually they melt enough to float and melt into the sea while other humongous ice bergs take their places.
The next day we awoke to blue sky and sunshine – a chance to see the mountains that surround Valdez. We traveled a bit into the hills, walked along the small boat harbor, and in the evening we went to Solomon Fish Hatchery where we witnessed a brown bear stroll to the river, catch and eat 4-5 salmon, then stroll off. There were so many salmon that he had NO problem grabbing the fish. His bigger problem was with the seagulls that would yak at him and fly in close while he was trying to eat. So he would bat them away with his paw as if they were annoying children. It was wonderful to watch.
The next day it was back to weather as usual – drizzling and gloomy. But we had to do laundry and shop and do other domestic stuff, so we didn’t really mind.
And now it is on to Tok, then to Skagway. We’ll get back to you next time.
Ellen & Gordon Meade
