Once again, these pictures are not in the cronological order in which they happened, nor in any kind of order. Can't seem to get it right when I'm making several different uploads. Anyway, bear with me. The above pic is of the beautiful Chilkoot Lake Park campground. Note the long, tall, big trees! Haven't seen these kind of trees since I don't know when....the interior of Alaska seems to be inundated with scrawney black pines; not pretty in my view. So we jut looooooved this campground. As a matter of fact the sockeye salmon are running now and Chris caught a beauty this am. 
This is a gas station!!! Can ya believe? It's in Chitina at the entrance of the Wrangell St. Elias National Park. The town is an ooooooold town that kind of grew because of the Copper mine 66 miles away. So, the town is suspended in time, it seems.
And on the mighty Copper River, not far from Chitina, they are raking in the salmon in the fish wheels and dip nets. Only Alaskans can fish in this area and in this way. If you could see one of these wheels in operation, you would see these big baskets spinning through the water (kind of like a water wheel in the old mills) and scoop up salmon and chute them into a basket. Very cool. You should see these folks....some of them are hauling freezers (!) run with generators so they can take care of all their salmon. This is a big deal here right now.
As we were leaving Chitina, we pulled onto a gravel wide spot at 3 Mile Lake and spent the night. Chris tried fishing for the trout there; no luck....but can you see how beautiful the place was? That spot off of the road is our camper....
OK....here he gets read for fishing....wearing the ever ready rain coat....always
Another view of 3 Mile Lake
And now, on our way to Valdez, we stopped to see Worthington Glacier....I think that was the name but I don't have my log (thank you Yvonne) with me right now....I really love jotting things down in this little log book Yvonne made for me while we are bumping along in the truck.
OK, and earlier that day, we were taking leave of the campground (King for a Day) on the Klutina River. We spent two days there. The folks there with us in the picture also stayed there for two days; they're from Minessota. Nice neighbors. While we were staying at this campground is when we visited with Chris' two sisters who were on the Princess tour. These folks had caught a lot of salmon in Valdez, so we had a pot luck; he fried the fish and we did the pasta and salad. We loved it had had a load of fun. Our camp was right where you can see in the picture, smack on the river.
A portrait of the happy campers....ready to head for Valdez.
Just another picture of that glacier I showed you before....this one is studied a lot.
This is Bridal Veil Falls...you'll read about it below; totally awesome....and it's right on the road!Sunday, July 20; to Valdez
Fifty degrees was the order of day when we left for Valdez; fresh with showers and a full tummy of Chris’ version of egg McMuffins. Occasionally blue sky popped through. First we saw the Worthington Glacier right off the road. Took a walk to it and took pictures. Very nice; they do loads of studies on the growth and recession of glaciers there.
The drive through the Thompson Pass and through the Keystone canyon (I think that was the name of it) was once again spectacular. I seem to use “spectacular” and “awesome” as adjectives a lot to describe the beautiful scenery…can’t seem to think of other words to describe the beautifulness of the surroundings. I’m trying to get across the fact that the mountains ad the rivers, falls, etc. are so unique; a view we in the Midwest don’t often have. Anyway, in the Keystone canyon, the Bridal Veil falls were really a sight to behold. Chris estimates that they might have been 500 feet high and it was right next to the road. Of course, pulled over and took a bunch of pictures. Too bad it was so overcast, because my pictures will not really show the true beauty. We could see the pipeline running along the road, but underground (there are yellow posts marking where it is underground).
Once we were through the canyon we passed “Old Valdez”, the sight of Valdez, until the Good Friday, 1964 earthquake. Totally annihilated the town. Then, once it was fattened, they decided to move town a couple of miles to the present site. There isn’t much to see in Valdez: lots of RV campgrounds, a few stores, a museum, a cannery, a gas station, a convention center, and a few other buildings; not much to see; one could walk through the entire town in an hour and hit every street while he’s doing it!
We then drove back up to Allison Point, which is on the way to the Valdez Marine Terminal, which is the end of the Alyesco Pipeline, where the oil is either loaded directly onto the super tankers or put in storage tanks. Unfortunately there were no tankers here for us to see. We have now been from the beginning of the pipeline to the end. How cool!
Our camp is right along the water. Chris went down the steep hill and navigated a few boulders so he could try his luck at salmon fishing. No success. There are loads of people here just going nuts with the fishing. Personally, I can’t see why all fuss.
Monday, July 21, 2008
It rained a bit last night; not much. Chris was up bright and early to try salmon fishing again. I stayed behind to perk the coffee. By the time I made our car-cups full of coffee and headed down the steep embankment, he had already caught one! Bingo! Two fish was the bag for the day. He cleaned them on the shore and threw the waste back into the water. The sea gulls were hovering waiting for their feast. Was fun to watch.
While we were standing at the back of our camper, looking out over this. In Valdez inlet/harbor off of Prince William Sound, we saw loads of sea gulls, sea lions with gulls pestering them for their fish, sea otters, eagles and salmon jumping out of the water. All the bears that our neighbor campers in Copper River told us were here never materialized! We were here….that’s why the bear didn’t come.
Today we’re heading back up toward the Chitina River area to the McCarthy
Road.
Later: we traveled 33 miles down the Edgerton Hwy. to Chitina (pronounced Chit’-na) at the entrance to the Wrangell St. Elias National Park (the largest of all of the national parks). The town grew with the Kennecott Copper Mine 66 miles away, where the highest grade of copper was mined for abt. 40 years and was transported on the railroad to Chitina. This National Park is the largest in North America; 6 times the size of Yellowstone; has 9 of the 16 highest peaks in North America; has glaciers that equal the size of Connecticut. Due to all the recent rains, we were told that the road past Chitina to the Kennecott Copper Mine was not in the best of condition and even had stray railroad spikes work their way to the top of the road bed (which had been the rail road bed). So, we walked around the little town of Chitina and took some cool pictures. On the drive back out to the Richardson Hwy (goes from Valdez to Fairbanks) we stopped at 3 Mile Lake on the road and camped for the night. Beautiful setting. Chris tried fishing a little while for stocked trout.
July 22, 2008
It rained all night; we were up and out of there by 8 am; it was 45 degrees. Heading toward Tok (the gateway to Alaska because to go in or out of Alaska by road, you HAVE TO go through Tok), we again decided against going to Chicken, Eagle and the Top of the World road to Dawson City because of the rain and bad roads. Later today some folks came from there in a little car and said it was dicey. Good decision. On the “Tok Cutoff” road we almost got wiped out by a cow moose charging across the road! Sadly, the beautiful view of the Wrangell Mountains and the 16,000 ft. peaks was dampened by the rain and clouds and I couldn’t take pictures. It is supposed to be in the 70 degrees here now…and we’ve been in the 40-50’s.
Revisiting a favorite campground on Deadman’s Lake about 20 miles from the Canadian border, we were lucky enough to get our same spot right on the lake. Chris tried fishing for a bit. Beautiful evening….and some blue sky.
July 23, 2008 Deadman’s Lake, AK; through Canada, to Haines, Alaska
Today was definitely a two-country tour to get to Haines. The only land route to Haines, Alaska, is OUT of Alaska through Tok, Alaska, through Yukon and British Columbia and THEN back into Alaska at ”Daltons Cache” port of entry. Took us 2 minutes at customs; not even out of the car. He liked Tommy, too. We were up and early on the road because we were going to travel half of our trip today over country we had already seen coming on the Alaska Highway. But, once again, everything looked new going from the other way! It has been rainy and cool, and I bemoan the thought of all the beautiful, stupendous, and awe inspiring photographs I have missed because of the rain….moan…but the mountains are still beautiful in their majesty. We drove all day with mountains on both sides of us. The road to Haines is a “scenic byway” in Alaska, and for good reason.
Today we had a cow moose dart across the road in front of us; that could be why the semi’s have the most huge “cow catchers” or grill guards on their rigs that you have ever seen. We also saw a black bear along the side of the road. One thing Chris noticed was the absence of wild flowers in the part of Canada we transversed today. I had been enjoying the wildflowers in Alaska immensely.
Once in Haines, we got our information for taking the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry to Skagway, and then booked a day ferry for Saturday to Juneau. It’s the capitol of Alaska, and yet not able to reach it overland; only by air or sea. And I’m certainly not going by sea.
I walked around a few shops, then we decided to go find a campground for the evening; it had been a long day. We went about 10 mi. out of Haines to the Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Area campground. It is so nice to be in big tall trees, conifers, but not the stubby, skinny black pine that the mail part of Alaska has so much of. These are sturdy, big trees. Love ‘em.
Chris plans on going salmon fishing tomorrow morning. Tonight we ate the last of the salmon that he caught in Valdez. Chris fried it; yes, artery clogging fried. Love it that way.
July 24; Haines
We have been doing a bit of sight seeing and tonight we are taking the Ferry to Scagway. That's the only way to get there; it's about an hour by Ferry across the Lynn Canal; but if we drove it, it would be about 300 miles! That's a no-brainer. Tomorrow we see Skagway, then on Saturday we take a fast ferry for a day trip to Juneau...the capitol of Alaska that is not accessable by land; only air and water. Strange, but this is a strange, beautiful, different world here....and it's still raining.... :-)
So, until we "connect" again...
No comments:
Post a Comment