We left Glacier View one morning as the sun was promising to clear off the mountain fog. We didn’t need a map this time, as in this part of Alaska there is just a couple of roads. In all of the approximately 200 miles we traveled that day there was only one right hand turn to make. The scenery was outstanding as we made our way through the mountain passes - the drive was pleasant.
Then as we were driving along we saw these Grizzly Bear cubs playing along the road. Of course we stopped (and stayed in the car!) knowing that mom might be around somewhere - and remembering what we had learned about grizzlies while we were in Jackson, Wyoming.
Even though these guys were cubs (or yearlings) they still went an easy 150–200 pounds. So we kept our distance (somewhat - inside the car) and took these pictures with the windows down. We kept a cautious eye out for mom (just in case) knowing that if she showed up and decided that she wanted to get at us she could probably open up our little car like a tuna can and just scoop us out. Grizzlies are surprisingly fast. Though they look big, heavy and lumbering, they can really move, hitting speeds up to 30 miles an hour, or possibly faster. This was timed with the bear setting his own pace. What they could do when protecting the babes or when “PO’d” might be entirely another matter. We weren’t going to test it.
We never stopped to think that Alaska, being the largest state in the union, may have some rather large National Parks. It does! Wrangell-St. Elias fits the bill rather well being almost six times bigger than Yellowstone, about 13 million acres – and has four mountain ranges and nine of the 16 tallest peaks in the entire country – four of them over 16,000 feet. And here I thought Colorado was incredible with its group of mountains over 14,000 feet. This is only one of 23 National Parks/Refuges in Alaska – pretty awesome!
We stopped by Wrangell-St. Elias visitor center on our way to Valdez and learned a little about the local culture and how they survived. In the below photo is a fish wheel/trap that was used for salmon - it was placed in a river and it worked all by itself with the river current. The little cabin looking thing was actually a winter food cache used to store all the dried/smoked salmon and keep it safe from the bears. Last but not least is a short explanation on Moose Head Soup (Yum!).
Moving on down the road we encountered the first (of many) kiosks explaining the infamous Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline.
Completed in 1977, this 48-inch oil pipeline is truly quite the engineering marvel. It covers over 800 miles of frozen tundra, northern forest, 800 rivers and streams, three major earthquake faults, and three rugged mountain ranges. Wow! It also has built into it more than 550 wildlife crossings for moose, caribou and other wildlife. The Trans Alaska Pipeline System was built as a means of transporting crude oil from the oilfields at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope to the port in Valdez, where it is loaded aboard tankers for the journey to the lower 48 refineries. This pipeline alone carries approximately 15 percent of the nation's total domestic oil production.
When we were able to walk up to it, the thought that was put into the building of this thing really impressed me. If you look closely at this pic which is only one support structure, you can see the pivot and slide points to allow a huge range of motion in the event of land shifts, earthquakes, avalanches and stuff like that. And that is only a small part of the technology that went into this thing – the scraper pigs are pretty awesome little gadgets that they use to keep the pipes clean and check for problems – remotely.
The Worthington Glacier, just a short distance above Valdez, is a good stop and another one of those accessible glaciers. So we stopped, got out the hiking shoes, heavy coats and cameras and were off once again.
As far as we could tell we couldn’t walk on this glacier without a guide so we stayed on the trail.
We found some pretty bizarre information at this glacier and if you would have asked prior to this trip I would have said you were tripping a bit. Believe it or not, and contrary to what many people say, ice worms do really exist! But, they do not give the glacier ice its blue color, nor do they grow to lengths of 50 feet like some people say. Here is a little ditty by the poet, Robert Service, at the Annual Cordova Ice Worm Festival – yes, there really is an Ice Worm Festival!
“Their bellies were a bilious blue, their eyes a bulbous red, their backs were grey and gross were they, and hideous of head, and when with gusto and a fork the barman speared one out, it must of gone 4 inches from its tail tip to its snout.”
I suggest you look this one up – I did!
These guys are real and have a home in the glaciers of Alaska. Over to the right is an ice worm hole in the Worthington Glacier and the guy above it is the bait. I waited around a while as Linda scaled one of the upper paths but the worm never did come out to eat the guy. Oh well – maybe next time.
We went over to the Valdez Museum and ran into this little object of attention. It claims to be the jaws of an Ice Worm from the Valdez Glacier, caught in 1947 and had a length of 27 feet. I guess this is Alaska’s version of a Jackalope.
In reality the above hole is a Moulin and part of the plumbing/lubrication system of a glacier. These holes go all the way to the base of the glacier and the water that flows through it lubricates the base of the glacier as it slides across the rocks. You do not want to go down these tubes as they can suddenly fill with water or collapse under the weight of the ice above. The real ice worms? Well the real ice worms are tiny little things that most people would have a hard time seeing without their glasses.
The Valdez harbor was first named by a Spanish explorer named Salvador Fildago in 1790. Little attention was paid to it until the Alaskan gold rush - when a scam was developed by a few dishonest steamship companies to lure prospectors off the Klondike gold trail to use the Valdez Glacier trail – claiming that it was a better route to the Klondike gold fields. The poor fools who believed them found out that this trail was twice as long and twice as steep and many of them died attempting the crossing.
A little more current history is from 1975 to 1977 when the Trans-Alaska pipeline was built to carry oil from the Prudhoe Bay oil fields in northern Alaska to a terminal in Valdez, to this day oil is still loaded onto tanker ships for transport here.
Then in 1989 the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred as the oil tanker Exxon Valdez was leaving the terminal at Valdez full of oil. The spill occurred at Bligh Reef, about 25 miles from Valdez. Although the oil did not reach Valdez, it devastated much of the marine life in the surrounding area.
You don’t see any evidence from the 1964 earthquake and tsunami damage here anymore. They tore down and burned what was left of the town after that and rebuilt the entire town 4 miles down the road.
The little town and port of Valdez is one of the most scenic ocean ports we have ever seen. It is surrounded with lush green and snow capped mountains, water falls in every direction and a harbor full of boats and ships. Unfortunately on the days we visited two and a half were nothing but grey and rain. I just hope that we can make it back here some day – but not when there is an earthquake, avalanche, tsunami or oil spill!
As we were roaming the area and headed towards the salmon stream and hatchery, we ran into this little black bear stuffing himself on the salmon that the gulls hadn’t got to yet.
We worked our way down to a local salmon hatchery and were surprised to learn that we had arrived right in time for a major salmon run. These were pink salmon or Humpy’s as the locals call them. There were hundreds of thousands of them and all the gulls, eagles and bears were looking for that tasty salmon that didn’t try hard enough to get away. The noise from the gulls was incredible and the smell even more so.
In places the salmon were so thick that you could not even see the bottom.
Watching these hundreds of thousands of fish make their way up the stream was quite the sight as was watching the process at the hatchery of stripping the eggs and milt for the unlucky ones that made the left when they should have turned right. I guess it didn’t really matter though as they all die after spawning – no matter how the spawning takes place.
The area is loaded with waterfalls and this one caught my eye as we passed by.
The ever present eagles – this guy just doing his eagle thing as we were hiking one afternoon.
There is nothing better than a few glacial ice chunks to go with a single malt scotch – this one from the Valdez Glacier. I had my mind set on a 20 year old scotch and a 1,000 year old chunk of ice.
Before I could sample that combo I found out that the ice from this glacier was only about 100 years old. I guess I won’t ruin the scotch on that.
After rain, rain, and more rain at Valdez we headed north to the little crossroads town called Tok. There are two theories about how Tok got its name – one is that it was named after a husky pup and another is that it was named for the road construction camp in the 1940’s named Tokyo Camp and then shortened. I really think that the forefather who named this place had a “vision” of the day that Alaska would pass legislation for use of recreational marijuana. Well that day has come! Having a toke in Tok may well become an advertising slogan there.
So after a short stay and an excellent dinner at Fast Eddy’s it was time to head up to the “Top of the World Highway” and visit the gold mining mecca of Chicken, Alaska. At one time this was quite the gold mining area (in the summer anyway) and the road to it from Tok is a bit of an adventure all its own. Our little rental made it up there and we made sure we picked up Linda’s geocache there as we wandered around looking at all the old mining equipment that has been left behind.
Chicken got its name in 1902 when the name Ptarmigan was suggested. (Because all the miners ate these little cousins of the quail). The only problem was that nobody could agree on the correct spelling and didn’t want their town to be the laughing stock of Alaska. So they named it Chicken!
If you like Chicken jokes this is the place for you.
This is an old mining dredge that is actually four stories tall and a little over 100 feet long – it was just left here after it did its job.
Below is an assortment of old mining equipment with dozers, drills and my favorite, the water nozzles used for hydraulic mining.
We know quite a number of folks that have lived in Alaska and quite a few more that have visited. They all have encouraged us to go and visit. It took quite a few years before we took their advice but we are glad we did – enjoying the scenery!
So after Chicken we headed down the road once again on our Alaska adventure towards Fairbanks and all the sights awaiting us there. One of the Alaskan natives along our route – she snorted at Linda as her picture was being taken. She probably heard us talking about moose head soup. What a cow!
The days are filled with things to see, things to do, and are flying by way too quickly. It’s time to explore Fairbanks……… but we hope you have enjoyed our latest small sample of this place called Alaska.
Stay tuned for the further adventures of:
Lee & Linda in Alaska
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