Valdez Alaska

Valdez is located at the head of a fjord on the eastern side of Prince William Sound, it was a former gold rush town and a lot of steamship companies promoted Valdez as a better route for miners to reach the Klondike gold fields of interior Alaska, any prospectors who believed the promotion found that they had been deceived, the glacier trail in Valdez was twice as long and very steep and many men died attempting the crossing, in part by contracting scurvy during the long cold winter without adequate supplies, so Valdez fell into despair and the its port did not flourish until after the road link to Fairbanks was constructed in 1899. 

Valdez suffered huge damage during the 1964 Alaska earthquake, and this tiny town is located near the site of the disastrous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill, so Valdez has had its share of heartbreak, but today it is one of the most important ports in Alaska, a commercial fishing port as well as a freight and ferry terminal. We came thru the ferry terminal ....that is right downtown Valdez.

I feel instantly in love with Valdez! 

It is surrounded by mountains with a vast supply of breathtaking glaciers.  

Fishing is a major industry here so they have a Hatchery, it was formed to raise, propagate and market fish and fish products, and to develop renewable fisheries resources for the benefit of all involved in the fishing industry in Alaska. The Solomon Gulch Hatchery is permitted to incubate 230 million Pink Salmon eggs and 2 million Coho salmon eggs annually. Each year starting in mid June, the Solomon Gulch hatchery awaits the return of it’s Pink salmon. August is for Coho’s. 

We were there for the return of the Pinks and it was spectacular! 

Egg take or spawning happens in late summer. Hatchery staff may spawn as many as 16,000 adult brood stock each day. These fish return to the hatchery spawning building by entering the facility using a fish ladder, which carry the fish from salt water to raceways on shore. Over the winter, the hatchery staff tends to the eggs as they hatch into alevin and settle into simulated gravel to subsist from their yolk sacs. In early spring, the fry emerge and are ready to go to out to sea... 

We took a day trip to Columbia Glacier, this glacier is a tidewater glacier that descends from the Church Mountains into Prince William Sound, this glacier is one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world and has been retreating since the early 1980s. Every day 13 million tons of ice break off the face of it (called calving) this leaves huge chunks of ice..icebergs..floating about..that means getting close to it can be tricky, but we were able to get real close and we witness a calving that was incredible! 

the trip was a whole day so we saw lots of Orca, Humpbacks, Sea Lions and 

Otters 

I could have stayed here forever, we would drive to the dump every evening after all the workers left and we would hide behind the dunes and watch the brown and black bears come out and dig for food. 

I think Esprit loved it too, when we left we only made it about 20 miles before she broke down and back to Valdez we went!
if you don't have Good Sams Towing.....Get It! we did have to stay in Valdez for another week while Pierre tried to fix her, (sweet) but the waste gate on the turbo was stuck open so we could not have made out anyway...no power on the engine..we called them and they had Esprit towed to Anchorage to the Cummins dealership, we followed in Bender! The tow truck driver told me that the tow would be $3000.00 and Good Sams did pay for it!! Score...

so it was back to Anchorage for us!
I called the Cummins Dealership and they were waiting for us, they were wonderful and they let us stay with Esprit.. it took about a week for them to fix her and then we returned to the RV park we first stayed in so Pierre could do some extra work on her.
Navi was a happy camper..he loved that RV park, we could take him out everyday for walks!