Copper Center to Valdez AK

It was a cool 3.5C at 7am ADT, sunny though. We’re heading for Valdez today. We likely could have got there yesterday, but didn’t want to blast through what we were told is one of the nicest drives in Alaska. Sure enough, it’s not a drive to rush through. The tough part of doing this blog entry is to keep the pictures down to a whole bunch!

The hills got higher as we went, some with snow-capped peaks. We stopped at Worthington glacier for a short walk and lots of pictures.

After this gorgeous drive, we arrived in Valdez about 9:30, 10C and sunny. In spite of chancy weather forecast for tomorrow, we booked ourselves for the Saturday cruise on the LuLu Belle. It’s nominally a 7 hr cruise, $125 each (US$ of course. Ouch!). Turned out to be 10 hours, and worth every penny!

We got set up on a spot at Eagle’s Rest cg for 2 nights, not much of a cg but easy walking distance to town. 

We walked down around the harbour, very picturesque with surrounding peaks. Lots of salmon fishermen around, apparently it’s the season now for pink salmon. 

The docks have these cleaning platforms, with the innards going into a barge below the work stations. Each day or as needed, a boat tows these waste barges out to dump the fish waste. This waste would be considered food by a lot of creatures.

21C at 4:30, gorgeous day, clear air. We drove out to a fish hatchery for the views, also someone told us there are usually bears around there. We watched a momma black bear and 3 little cubs feasting:

We’ve never been to a salmon run before; it’s almost unbelievable to see a stream just full of fish, all desperate to reach the spawning grounds. Apparently the hatchery takes about 10% of the fish for spawning stock, and the rest are food for the bears and birds, and fishermen. The hatchery is at the right of the picture below.

The roiled water near the bottom of this photo is caused by salmon thrashing around in the shallow stream. They can't get past the dam:

Yes, bears like this spot too:

Those rocks in the water are actually salmon:

We checked out the ferry to see if we could take it to Whittier (south of Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula). We could, and booked for a Tuesday crossing. It’s a 6 hr ferry ride, but saves about 400 miles driving, a long day for us.

It was almost a compliment when we were “carded” buying a 6-pack of beer. I had to show id, and then Cath had to as well, because she came in with me. I thought the guy was kidding at first, unbelievable that they think this will control their bootleg problems.

Today's route: