Valdez, Alaska, United StatesValdez
Too early at Worthington Glacier
We left fairly early and arrived
already before 9 am at the Glacier: outside it was super cold and windy, as
well some of the mountains were still in the clouds. Gine said relaxing Coffee
then late breakfast and then hopefully the clouds will blow away. Warmer clothes and jacket on and we are ready
to see the Glacier a bit closer. At the viewpoint we meet a couple and Paul had
to ask him, if there is a reason that he carries a pistol with him (yes on his
belt easy to see) – he said in case there are bears – Really!!!
We could learn a lot about Glaciers
here and then walked down towards the river until we reached the sign telling
us the we are endangering ourselves: the path looked good so we continued on
and went to the water and Gine went up onto the Morraine – until she would
needed the sticks to cross a creek – time to turn around.
Continuing on we saw several glacier
on is the 27-Mile Glacier and the Keystone Glacier
What’s to know about the Glaciers??
We are in a city which is surrounded
by glaciers – so which one are we seeing here:
- Columbia Glacier: in Prince William Sound – we saw it on our Boat tour
- Meares Glacier is also in Prince William sound – but wa to far for as to visit, it is unique as it the only advancing tidewater glacier in North America
- Valdez Glacier: at the outskirts of Valdez – we saw a bit of it and it was known as the All-Amerikna Route during the Gold rush as gold seekers travelled over the glacier into the interior of Alaska. You can go there by kayak or paddle boat via the Glacier lake – sadly we came to late in the evening and the rest of the time it was too cold
- Worthington Glacier: we saw it and walked along the river coming out of it
- And we saw lots of other glaciers on the way into town
Did you know there are different
Glaciers:
- Valley glaciers: they flow through a valley, sometimes they are fed by an icefield which can have several glaciers – like the Worthing glacier
- Cirque Glaciers: they can erode backwards into the mountain which creates a bowl-like basin
- Hanging Glaciers: this is when the end of the glaciers looks like it is hanging or clinging to a cliff a steep mountainside
- Piedmont Glaciers: when a valley glaciers spills into a flat plain and spreads into a bulb-like lobe
- Tidewater Glaciers: they are flowing into the sea and when they calve they produce icebergs
How do glaciers form:
- Snow accumulates: if it snows more in winter than it thaws in summer, than glaciers form, each snow layer buries and compresses the layers below and it re-crystalizes, it then combines into larger crystals – after two winters these crystals resemble small pebbles called firn. The firn crystals continue to combine and increase in size, once air is not able to flow freely around crystals it becomes ice: this can take 5-100 years
- The massive weight of snow and ice forces the ice to flow and when movement occurs it becomes a glacier
- Glaciers pick up and drag over the rock reforming the landscape, depending what gets drapped in the ice that is how it forms grooves, smooth. Because they are so heavy they erode the bedrock underneath them and loose debris gets caught in the ice
- A growing glacier increases in mass – more snow is added every year – a shrinking glacier looses mass through more melting, caving
- When we talk about advance and retreating glaciers we talk about the terminus: normally when a glacier increases the terminus advances – if the overall glacier mass sinks the terminus melts away faster than the ice can move downhill and the glacier is retreating
- Glaciers move faster if the temperature gets warmer, it has more meltwater (Meltwater can create slippery layers between the base of the glacier and the bedrock and it slides easier), the terrain is steeper and it is a thicker glacier
And how about Moraines:
- While grinding down a valley a glacier collects material and carries the debris downhill when it reaches the glaciers edge it deposits as a moraine
- Main moraines can be mounds or ridges and they get names depending on how and where the material is deposit
- Terminal moraines form at the end of the glacier marking it’s furthers advance, if a glacier re-advances this one will be destroyed and a new terminal moraine will be established
- Recessional moraine: form behind a terminal moraine marking periods when a glacier was stationary during its retreat
- Lateral moraines: form on the glaciers side
- Medial moraines forms when the lateral moraines of two glaciers merge creating one dark band of debris down in the middle. Sometimes when one glacier moves faster then the other, the medial moraine will swirl*
Some interesting facts about glaciers:
- Snow and ice reflect sunlight better than land and water: ice reflects 85 %, land reflects 20 % and water only 10 % - so if the glaciers shrink then more heat absorbing land is exposed and the earth temperature raises faster. There are a lot of predictments what could happen like that the Gulf stream would be force further south removing it’s warming effect on northern Europe
- Life after a glacier: the lichens are the first ones to come to life and help create fertile soil: they can grow on bare rock, retain water, help erode rock into soil with acids, get nitrogen from the air, dies and creates soil – no moss can grow….
- Ice worms do exit – they do not like sunlight, they collect food particles from the glacier run offs,
Scenic Richardson Highway:
- It is Alaska’s oldest Highway: we are heading to Mile 0 in Valdez
- The Hwy is 364 miles long and ends in Fairbanks where we will be later on our journey
- Major Wilds P Richardson worked to upgrade the trail to a wagon road in 1910 and made it suitable for vehicles in the 1920s – it got paved in 1957
- The keystone Canyon or the place of waterfalls got named in 1898 after the keystone state Pennsylvania
Blue berry lake Rec Site.
After a beautiful drive over the
Thompson Pass and drove into Blue Berry
Lake Rec Site – we read that they say it is one of Alas’as most beautiful
situated campsites – I mean the lake is a lake in the mountains but we saw
clearly more spectacular ones and some of the sites had nice views on the mountains
– but if I would call it the most beautiful situated??? And on top of it, you
have to pay for day-use parking if you stay longer than 30 Min – so we didn’t.
We still saw an eagle
The unfinished old Railway Tunnel at
the Huddleston Falls
Now it went downhill and then Gine
said ok at the next bridge very soon we have to park there is a railroad
tunnel, we did turn into the parking lot and it took as a bit but we discovered
the tunnel: we walked through it and Gine said really they drove a train here –
and Paul said no it never got finishes: and the most amazing thing is it a
hand-cut tunnel from
1905. Several companies battles to
take advantage of the short route and the building of the tunnel got stopped
after a gun battle – what a shame. We walked over some huge rocks and then
uphill and came out on the other side: on this side the tunnel is not that high
– it was kind of cool like going through a cave.
And as we are in the Waterfall –
Canyon: we walked to the other end to see the Huddleston Falls.
Bridal Veil Falls
Next stop after barely another mile is
the Bridal Veil Falls: this is one huge gigantic waterfall: it is super high
and is like several waterfalls below each other – it is nearly impossible to
see the whole waterfall.
I may should mention that here in this
valley are so many waterfalls – a lot of them don’t even have a name – only the
super special ones for the tourists.
The Horsetail Falls
Yes around the next curve we pull out
again: this time it’s the Horsetail falls – another beautiful waterfall along
the road – this one is perfect to take a picture with our truck.
We check out where we can stay in town
And then we head into Valdez – later
in the day we discovered there are maybe 3 parallel streets and we drove all of
them several times and don’t even need a map anymore.
As per weatherforecast it will likely
rain tomorrow and the day after – so we said we maybe should then stay in an RV
Park so we have electricity and Wifi – but we can for today stay for free – so
first we drove around town and the harbour and checked out our options –
perfect, Valdez has lots of Parking.
RVing maintenance
Next stop is the Visitor info to ask a
few questions and also quick check out the internet and Paul is calling Bill,
as we learned that we can cut down trees in our yard but we can’t cut down
trees in our yard if we are building a cottage house????? What!!!!!
Paul said it is an emergency that he
needs Chips, because Gine said we do the shopping tomorrow when it rains and so
we went and bought not cheap chips (yes small town means big prices)
The non-scenic walk
- Did you know that the Bird Artic Tern breeds as far north as the Alaska Tundra and overwinters as far south as the Antarctica: they can live for 34 years and travel about 25.000 miles each year – having the longest migration of any species
- Not all birds are snowbirds: black-capped chickadees survive the winter here, they stash seeds and can remember thousands of hiding places: every autumn they allow brain neurons full of old information to die and then get replaces with new neurons
The Dock Point Trail with overlooks
sounds great and we hope for some nice views: after parking we walk in the
forest, up in the forest come to a viewpoint with glimpses and along the edge
with more glimpses and back into the forest and back – I guess all the
important people do not understand what a viewpoint is!!! The view from the
parking lot is way better. We then continue down the road along to the Harbour
and check out some more views – it is amazing on how many harbours this town
has, we end up in a fishing plant and then head back towards the “busy”
harbour:
Checking out the Harbourfront
Gine said we have coffee at the busy
harbour front, there we can watch the ships and mountains, sit in the sunshine
and watch people – and that is what we did, as well walking along the
boardwalk. We did stop in the RV park right there and discovered they are
booked out. Ok maybe we should check if the other RV Parks have a spot tomorrow
and found another one – which actually has nicer views.
Ice in the Glacier Lake
What should we do now? Gine said we
missed the Glacier Lake – so we drove there, and it is super cute we end up at
a little lake with ice still all around the edges – the only downside: we came
way to late in the evening, it would have been amazing to come earlier in the
day and then go out with the paddleboard and check out if we can get closer to
the glacier and the ice.
Views from the Civic Outlook trail
And a bit more of a workout: we go up
on the outlook trail – ok it is only 10 Min up and then we are on this cute
little viewpoint and can see the oil refineries on the other side, as well we
can see a super cute little park – so on the way back we decided to stop there
as well check out the parking lot near the ferry station as there are some cool
wooden sculptures.
Supper in Valdez Harbour
Time for supper – we decided that
today we get a take-out from Safeway, as Paul totally loved the rips!!! And
that is what we did Rips and Chicken – that means no cooking. But after all
that eating we needed a super-short walk along the boardwalk – yes we will park
tonight at the harbour (free 48 hour parking) – but we made it short as it is
so windy and cool and we didn’t put on warm clothes and neither a jacket.
We saw all of the little town of
Valdez:
- In 1778 Captain James Cook explored the Sound and called it Sandwich sound, but British mapmakers changed it later to Prince William Sound
- 1790 Spanish Explorer Salvador Fidalgo entered the Sound and claimed it for Spain and named the Area Valdez
- It got settles in 1897 when 4000 gold prospectors called it the All-American Route to the Klondike gold rush – this was one of the most dangerous routes to it
- There are two towns: the contemporary town for the outdoor adventures and the old pre-1964 town
- It’s good we are here in July because there are only 3 month in the year when it does not snow!!! And with an average of 27 feet of snow a year in the town (and triple up at Thompson Pass)
What Valdez will be remembered by: the
port for the Black Gold
- Is the oil or Black Gold in Alaska: in 1896 oil is discovered in the Cook Inlet but there is no major extraction for antoerh 70 years
- In 1968 Atlantic Richfield discovered massive oil deposits underneath the Prudence Bay in the Arctic Ocean: the value of the oil doubled after the Arab oil embargo of 1973: but the oil couldn’t be tapped until a pipeline was built to transport it to the warm-water port of Valdez but they had to wait until the US Congress settled controversy among the industry environmentalist and the Natives over historical claims: this got all settles in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971
- The 789 mile long pipeline the Trans Alaska Pipeline took 3 years to built and was the most expensive private construction at that time: it crosses 3 moutnain ranges, 34 major rivers and 500 streams
- The oil began to flow on Jne 20, 1977 – during the 1980s Alaska had the highest per-capita income in the country
Disasters hit Valdez:
- In 1964 Valdez got hit by the Earthquake: after the Good Friday Earthquake in March a tsunami killed 32 people (some were inside ships) and destroyed several towns: Valdez was one of them.
- In 1989 the excon Valdez run aground on Blight Reef and spilled almost 11 Mill Gallons of il into Prince William Sound: it was the US’ biggest human made environmental disaster (until in 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oil spill). The Oil spilled quickly and became to large for booms to contain, it spread 600 miles form the grounding site. It contaminated 1567 miles of shoreline and killed an estimated 100.000 – 250.000 birds and 2800 sea otters as well decimated the fish populations. Even today you can find oil below the sand on many beaches
A Lazy – or a busy Day in Valdez
Yesterday when we had finally internet
we discovered that there will be a rainy day today – that means we slept in.
Then went to the Visitor Info to have internet with coffee and late breakfast.
We decided today will be a big cleanup
and get ready day: filling gas and also checking all fluids and the air in the
car. Then as it was still too early for the RV park we checked out the gift
shops (haha there is no real gift shop).
A Bear in the RV Park
And then we checked in early: first
things first: a nice long warm shower. Then the laundry starts the blankets
come outside, fresh air in the camper and w loads get washed. During that time
Paul cleans away the bugs, Gine re-organizes all the papers and everything
inside. It is amazing how a whole day can go by with not a lot to do.
Oh and lets not forget the bear, once
coming back from the Laundry we looked and there was a bear walking between the
RV’s – then went up to the main entrance
Now we are fully charged (I mean the
batteries) and decided this weather is perfect for Pizza we got told by the
locals that the pizza is the best from the Stamp Mill which is a super cute
place, as you “walk in a cave” over railroad tracks in the floor – and inside
you feel like you are in a mine.
2025-05-22