Our second full day in Valdez

July 30th, 2014. We spent $20 on Camping last night but that included 2 showers this morning and a trip to the dump station and fresh water. Valdez Glacier was only about 1 mile away so we checked it out. It has receeded back into the mountain and cannot be reached because of a large pond between it and the road / parking area. There was a large group of boy scouts here that appeared to be having a "Jamboree" nearby. They had procured several Kayaks and were receiving instructions on what to do next. There also appeared to be some excavating and perhaps mining around one side (Noisy) so we moved on down the road and back to downtown "new" Valdez.

I was amazed at an outside exhibit of a rescue of a sinking ferry ship! Everyone really springs to your aid and the towns people of Valdez gave a great assist in this instance. Not a life was lost. I hope you can expand the write up I've provided. It was quite interesting. One of the lifeboats was exhibited beside the display, showing that those aboard would have to push/pull on metal bars inside the boat to power it!

We then headed into the Museum . They had many interesting displays plus a movie on the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 and it's aftermath. Very interesting. We had to go to a second museum location to see the 32 minute movie on the History of Valdez. It included the 1964 Earthquake and the reasons for the decision to move the town 4 miles. This movie was also very interesting.

Finally, we headed over to the Fish Hatchery to see the returning salmon. This was a fascinating occurance. The little dark bumps sticking out of the water in the picture are fins! Thousands upon thousands of salmon were trying to get into the hatchery. They take many in and harvest their eggs and artificially inseminate them. They hope to harvest 230 million pink salmon eggs, 10 to 15 million per day, 1700 per fish. (In addition to red salmon and King salmon we saw pink humpys returning too.) It was quite a sight to see hundreds of gulls trying to feed on the salmon. No bear showed up while we were there (over 3 hours) though there were recent reports of a brown sow with twin cubs and a black sow with the same teaching their young how to catch and eat the fish each evening. We did get to see an occasional sea lion or two come into the mass of salmon and the fish would part in a large circle to try to avoid being eaten. But they were easy pickings for the lion. Later on I noticed a strange group and after the picture was taken I was able to blow it up enough to see a group of sea-lions hanging out together at sea. I wonder what they were communicating to each other? Together to feast no doubt.

At 8 pm we decided to head back up the Richardson Hwy and over to Chitina ahead of the next day's reconstruction delays. We also have better chances to view wildlife in the pre-dusk hours. Twenty of the first thirty miles down the Edgarton Highway is under reconstruction at this time. Almost the entire way down it we were accompanied by a very bright and beautiful rainbow. (battery exhausted again after the first "too early" picture!) It became a full high arch with Mt. Wrangell clearing up into view under it. The sun set behind a mountain to our west and it quickly disappeared. A few minutes later, (10:30PM) we stopped at the local Chitina bush pilots airport/camping area for the night ($15) and tucked in. We expect quite a full day tomorrow!