Valdez and other stuff

So, continuing from Worthington Glacier…

…we opted not to hike up to it (since we had done the one near Juneau), and we were glad we skipped it, so we could do this mountain valley hike right off the road:

That’s actually a dirt road leading up to the outcropping, then it continued as a trail out to the second prominence you can see there.

The hillsides were covered in ferns and wildflowers (mountain harebell, yellow paintbrush, and the large swath of mountain heather in the foreground, if you were interested) 😉.  Because the latitude is 60 degrees North here, alpine tree line is at about 2,500 ft of altitude, compared to over 11,000 ft in CO!

Bridal Veil Falls is right beside the highway heading into Valdez…

…within Thompson Canyon.

Thompson Pass, at the head of this canyon, is the snowiest place in Alaska (averaging 500 inches per year).  It holds the record for the most snow in one season within the entire US – 974 inches in the winter of 1952-53, and the most snow in a single day – 62 inches on 12/29/55.

Before we checked into our campground near the harbor in Valdez, we visited a salmon hatchery across the inlet, where I finally saw salmon.  I had been looking all over the state for salmon in creeks and rivers, with no luck, as we were between spawning seasons of the various species.

We had a blast watching sea lions fishing for them at the mouth of the hatchery inlet. We probably spent at least an hour watching them.

As we left the Port of Valdez the next day, for our cruise of Prince William Sound and to see another glacier up close, we were met by a cute farewell committee…

…that were pretty laid back.

We learned about purse seine fishing for salmon, where the net hangs vertically in the water with its bottom edge held down by weights, until the “purse line” is pulled up into the boat, as the circle is closed:

On the way to the glacier, there were huge waterfalls…

…gorgeous scenery along the coast…

…both Horned and Tufted Puffins (left and right, respectively):

…as well as Dall Porpoises -

(very fast and hard to capture in a picture)

Well before we could see Columbia Glacier, we encountered large icebergs…

…that had beautiful colors and interesting shapes from melting and wind erosion.

The captain told us it was pretty rare to see the sea otters out of the water, so we snuck up on this group:

…and reveled in seeing this guy walk down the ice floe and pause before slipping into the water.

We couldn’t get any closer than this (5 miles) to the main (east) arm of Columbia Glacier, due to all the ice in the water…

…but we were able to get within a quarter mile of this west arm –

…and watch it calve.

I got really lucky a few times to have my camera trained on the section that let go, because there’s no warning.  Once you hear a crack or splash, it’s almost over.

If you blow up the center of the picture above, you can hopefully see the areas falling, with all the little debris around them.  (when I run through the series of stills I got on my computer, it looks like a neat slo-mo movie)

A last look back -

On the way back to the harbor:

I promised a tanker at the end of the pipeline -

Now off to more adventures…