Valdez and the Glaciers (sounds like a 60's band)

August 15, 2022

Hello from Valdez, AK! We have had a nice couple of days here in Valdez. We will be leaving on the 7am ferry tomorrow for Seward... not looking forward to getting up that early .... Ugh!

Our drive from the McCarthy Road was nice. No snow but plenty of fog! This is Bridal Veil Falls - a bit apropos since we have weddings coming up in the Alsguth clan!

Yesterday we had a lovely excursion planned. A kayaking adventure to the Columbia Glacier. This involved a 2.5 hour boat ride to Columbia Bay. Along the way we saw some sea otters just hanging out.

Also, this cool lighthouse with some Sea Lions in residence... they just chillin'

Finally some commercial fishermen. That is a salmon net in between the "main" boat and the skiff. Both are needed to close the net around the catch. They can pull in this enormous net in about 10 minutes. We did not hang around long enough to see the entire process.

This is a big iceberg that calved from one of the glaciers and was floating in the bay. We were told that an iceberg this size will be gone in under a week.

We launched our kayaks from the shore after a minute to find a "Port-o-rock" (this was the hardest part of the trip... LOL).

We moved up the bay toward the glaciers, encountering icebergs of various sizes.

The Columbia Glacier was much larger as recently as 2005. Now it has receded to the point where there are three "branches" apparent. Basically the bay has gotten much larger. This glacier face is about 300 feet tall. Our guide asked us to guess and, of course, we were wildly off. The distances and perspective made it very difficult to understand the enormity of it.

Shout out to all my Pinnacle peeps - hope you are staying cool in AZ (and elsewhere)!

At first Mr. Safety (Carsten) was trying to steer around the ice but eventually he realized it was not possible. When we went over it it sounded funny! Of course it was not dangerous!

This was our lunch spot: on a moraine with water running everywhere. Not bad!

It was an amazing day! We had all the rain gear we needed - we never were cold. The guide said if we fell in she would turn the kayak over, we would change clothes and keep on moving. HaHaHaHa ... that's funny.

For the first time I can recall, Carsten and I were the oldest participants - by 10 years I would guess. But, what we lacked in youth we made up in experience kayaking! The toughest part was the lack of bathroom for 9 hours. LOL

Today we were able to sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast. We met some nice people from Ogden, UT - they play our card game Hand & Foot - but of course they have different rules. Naturally!

First stop today was the Solomon Gulch Hatchery. They "ocean ranch" Coho and Pink Salmon to help the commercial fishing industry as well as the sport fishing folks. The fish hatched/released from here return to spawn after living their last year of life in the open ocean, travelling 1,500 miles to return. Here they are trying to get up the river. There is a weir that prevents them from making it into that stream.

Instead they are redirected to this 29-level fish ladder. They ascend the ladder and end up in raceway tanks, simulating the river they expect.

The fish are moved into this "harvesting" process where the eggs and sperm milk are harvested to be fertilized and incubated. Once they hatch and are a bit larger they are in the ocean in big enclosures until released to the ocean.

This was fascinating and does not reduce my love of salmon at all! LOL

Driving back to town we saw folks out on the road. This is a sure sign that something is up!

While we were watching the bears (below) this bald eagle flew into a tree above us. He was kind of far away. Looking at him through the binoculars was cool!

This is one of the two cubs that was with his momma in the stream. The momma was catching fish while the two were playing, including sliding down this rock. When momma would catch a fish and start eating it; these two would show up to eat. She would leave the fish and go back to the stream. She kept doing this and frankly, I could tell she was getting irritated!

The dead fish you see here are salmon that had spawned and deposited their eggs. Once they do this they die. She was not into dead fish, rather she was catching the live ones.

After a nice lunch (I had a salmon roll - keeping to the theme of the day), we headed out on another hike (we hiked Dock Flats earlier but none of the pictures made the cut). Homestead Trail was quiet and lovely.