Love It Here

Aug. 23rd: Sean and I went to all of our bear viewing points once more to show Brian and Patti where we had spotted them. So, our first stop was Crooked Creek, just outside of town and there was the same bear we had seen there for about 3 times in a row. I think we could call him "old faithful."

 We watched him for a while and then headed out to the fish hatchery to view how many salmon were still there, and there were tons of them still fighting the currents. Salmon amaze us! How do these creatures remember where they were born and then find their way back upstream and against very strong currents (sometimes up to 2000 miles)? Wow!

A little spider web for your enjoyment.

 We all were marveling at the sun peering through the fog! Little did we know that was just the beginning.

We met Brian and Patti at Allison Point, just down the road, where they were scoping out a good spot to fish for the next couple of days. We got to talking to a couple of guys from New Hampshire that make the trek to Valdez every so often to fish. They were telling us the best time to fish would be 2 hours before/after high tide. This is when the silvers (one type of salmon) would be easier to catch. This is when we noticed that you could see clear across the bay, and there lies Valdez!

 After they got an idea of where they were going to fish, we decided to all go eat at a local burger eatery (where I got a King's Hawaiian Bun on my burger, yum!). Then, Sean and I were headed over to see about buying tickets to do a kayak glacier tour. We had past a place a few times offering tours to Valdez Glacier, so we decided to go with that guy (it helped our decision that he was offering the cheaper price).

Next on the agenda, we headed down Richardson Highway to see Horsetail and Bridal Veil Falls, and Worthington Glacier.

Sean and my favorite falls is Horsetail. Bridal Veil is very pretty, but you can't get right up to it like Horsetail.

Rainbow at Bridal Veil

Bridal Veil (Left)

Once we were done frolicking in the falls, we headed to Blueberry Lake to pick some fresh blueberries. Sean had his stomach set on a blueberry pie, and I told him we would need about 5 cups worth. Well, we got to about 1 cup in 20 minutes and decided to call it quits due to rain and lack of blueberries! No blueberry pie for the boy... :(

We found an off-road trail going out to a lookout point. Pictures don't do the scenery much justice, but you can be the judge...

Worthington Glacier was just up the road, so we trekked up Thompson Pass to the turnoff. We had heard that this was a glacier you could actually go up to and touch. We didn't know that we had to make our own path up to it, haha! We climbed and climbed, even stopping about halfway there and considered turning back because it was very steep and the rocks very loose, but we kept going because we both wanted to touch that glacier so bad!

Finally, we were right up to it. We had not seen anyone the entire way up the loose, steep rocks, but then suddenly there was one guy standing right next to the glacier taking a picture out toward the valley, lol! Sean went to a chunk of ice and touched it, then I was able to come near where he was and touched a different area. We were surprised at the feel of the glacier. It wasn't slushy feeling, like we had previously thought, but it was very hard. You could tell the area was water-logged and very unstable, so we got our pictures and "got the heck out of Dodge!" It started raining on us on the way back, so we were trying to make our way fast, but then got lost in what we thought was a different way back. Lesson learned: always go back on the trail you came in on...unless there is a bear, haha! Luckily, we didn't encounter any wildlife and we found our way back to the Jeep safe and sound.

Sean and I decided to walk down to the boat launch area next to the small boat harbor, where they seemed to be very busy at near 11pm. It was low-tide and there wasn't much dock in the water. Many of the boats had to hang out farther away from the launch. So, we watched "musical" boats for a while, then headed to bed!