First stop today at the Valdez museum where we learnt all about the earthquake of Good Friday 1964, and other facts about the town. It’s almost unimaginable the damage that was caused by the earthquake, the town was completely destroyed and the earthquake’s affects were widespread over the Kenai Peninsula. They have a video at the museum that was taken by a crewman of a vessel that had docked in Valdez just before the earthquake hit; the boat was pushed into the town with the tsunami and then sucked back and forth out to sea as other waves hit the area. The destruction resulted in the town moving to a new location that was deemed safer in the event of another earthquake.
Then onto the Crooked Creek info center where we saw salmon in the creek spawning and dying; the salmon come back to their natal stream to spawn, but the physical changes that they have to go through to adapt to fresh water after living in salt water results in the salmon having to basically feed on themselves and that’s why they end up dying. They also had an underwater camera which gave an interesting perspective of what was going on in front of us.
We then started out on the Richardson Hwy towards Copper Center and saw the effects of the heavy rain that they had experienced recently in this part of Alaska; there looked like there had been widespread flooding in the river valleys as we drove by them.
Our next stop was Keystone Canyon where there are two large waterfalls, the Horsetail Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls. Apparently these are popular wedding locations; not quite up to Dominican Republic standards! They are also popular with ice climbers in the winter. At the end of the canyon there is a short hand cut tunnel, the Old Railroad Tunnel, that was built as various railroad companies raced to build a route from the coast to the copper mines at Kennicott. Legend has it that there was a gun fight between the competing companies at this site, as the tunnel is unused I guess we can figure out who lost!
We then drove through Thompson’s Pass where we were treated to some spectacular views. The pas has the dubious distinction of being the snowiest place in Alaska with over 80 feet of snow each winter!
We stopped at the Worthington Glacier and got some close up views of the glacier. As with all glaciers this glacier is retreating rapidly, since the 1970’s, global warming?
The bookstore lady at the glacier said that only 2 weeks ago there had been 90 mph winds at the glacier and that the falls at Keystone Canyon were flowing across the road! Glad we didn’t plan this trip for earlier! She lives in Valdez and I asked her about the pronunciation of the name, is it Valdez or Valdeez? She said that the residents of the town had voted on this and had chosen Valdeez, so now you know!
Had lunch at the Tiekel River Lodge, sounds fancy, but in fact a diner in the middle of nowhere!
Stopped at Willow Lake and had a great view of the Wrangell Mts, but the views were nothing compared to the views we had from the hotel in Copper Center! We sat out on the terrace of the hotel with our drinks and watched as the clouds over the mountains cleared in the late afternoon until all the major peaks became visible, a photographer’s dream come true!
At dinner, our waitress told us that the hotel closes for the season on September 18th. She is an Alaskan native who now lives in Covington, KY but she works at the hotel from May thru’ September.
I had seen on the web that there might be the chance for Northern Lights and mentioned this to one of the staff who said that if we told the front desk of our interest that if they happened they would give us a call. So went off to bed and at about 11pm the phone rings and the message says the lights are out; so dash down to be treated to an amazing light show. The lights, green in color, stretched all the way the northern sky and constantly changed, what an incredible place. Hoping that Gavin got some decent pictures with his digital SLR camera; have to see if we can steal some!
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