August 21, 2016 by Lee and Tracy

First Time on a Glacier Cruise

The actual birthday weather wasn’t so bad for Valdez; no rain, and a little bit of sun peeking through, so we were all pretty excited about taking the cruise. Here’s the thing though, and I really think I should lead with this: Despite my best efforts in my head, when I think glacier cruise I had this image of a beam of sunlight and an orca jumping out of the water so I could snap the perfect pic. Yes, I knew it was unlikely, but since it was my birthday I thought maybe the universe would smile. Alas, there were no whale sightings on this cruise, but we did see the glacier, and two kinds of puffins at the end and that was pretty special. As a side note, this same group of friends went on a sunset cruise in Tarpon Springs a couple of years ago and it did have several magical moments, so sometimes it does happen, just not so much on this trip.

Check in time for the cruise was 10am so we all arrived with plenty of time. Despite the overcast day the docks were pretty amazing and Stan Stephens had a nice gift shop where I picked up a long-sleeved T-shirt and this really cool ear warmer head band. My ears get cold, but most earmuffs give me a headache, so I was excited to put one on that was actually loose on my head. Immediate sale!

Our boat, was smaller than I though it would be

Stan Stephens

The docks

I am not much of a boat person, but sometimes that is the best way to get to see stuff, so armed with lots of warm clothing, a sea sickness patch (which worked great), and my friends, I was ready to go. The boat was really nice. The bathrooms were clean and large enough that I didn’t feel claustrophobic, and there were indoor and outdoor seating areas. It also helped that the charter was only at about 50% capacity, so there was plenty of room to wander about and see both sides of the boat. They also offered free coffee, tea, lemonade, and water all day and the included lunch of clam chowder, bagel, and Oreos was perfect. I also really enjoyed the crew members as they were all young, friendly, and really seemed to be having a good time.

My only major complaint is that the ride was 7 hours long. Now, if it would have been non-stop action, that would have been fine, but there was a lot of down time between animal/glacier sightings. Also, absolutely no smoking on the boat. I get it, and bought some Nicorette lozenges (which work but taste like chalk) for the trip, but it would have been less annoying if more exciting stuff happened. For those of you who don’t smoke there was no drinking of alcohol either. At one point Lee leaned down and said, “I think we are spoiled,” and he was definitely right. I know I was incredibly lucky to be experiencing this amazing trip with friends, and in Alaska no less, but honestly a bunch of the trip was kind of boring. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad I did the trip, but I’m not sure I would rush to do it again.

Here’s the pictures though, and since you won’t have any wait time, I think you will enjoy it.

Navigating out of the bay was pretty

Lots of glaciers and waterfalls

According to the captain these oil tankers turn around in 48 hours

According to the captain these oil tankers are filled within 48 hours

We saw several bald eagles along the shore line, but too far away for any good pictures

We saw several bald eagles along the shore line, but too far away for any really good pictures. This is how it looked to the naked eye

With a 300 zoom lense

According to the captain there are 2,500 mating pairs along these shores, which is impressive

The waterfalls were cool

Anderson Falls was the best

There was a black bear sighting which Lee snapped this picture of, but since I was on the wrong side of the boat I couldn’t see it before it was gone

Me, Kelly, and Jo. Thanks Ben for taking this picture!!

When we got closer to the glacier we did get to see lots of otters, and they were super cute. They can sleep in the water, but give birth on the ice and use the ice to rest when they have their babies. We saw several groups of them and they were all very entertaining. The captain wouldn’t get close to any of the mothers with babies because they are skittish and can occasionally abandon the babies, which I respected.

Loved this little guy. It’s my favorite picture.

Next up was Columbia Glacier, and that very pretty cool. It does take quite some time for the captain to navigate the huge ice chunks, but he managed to get us pretty close on this particular day since there was little wind. The sun also came out for a little bit and despite the ice chill it was pretty. What everyone wants to see though is a big chunk of ice breaking off, and again reality did not match the picture in my head. The ice wall is huge and the calving happens very quickly, so although I saw a couple after the fact splashes I didn’t actually see ice breaking off, and I certainly didn’t snatch a picture of it happening. Still, I am glad I saw this, although I was uncomfortably aware of the Titanic movie throughout. That water was freezing and you wouldn’t last long in it. Here are the pictures of how it appeared as we got closer and closer.

Huge ice chunks the captain navigated. Keep in mind 90% is below the water

The Glacier with some sun on it which was nice

Lee’s pic the ice really was that blue, it’s not color corrected at all

Unfortunately, as slow as it was getting to the ice it was even slower getting out, and without the anticipation of seeing the ice close up. We did see some mountain goats along the way, but they were very far off and again no decent picture could be had.

The white dots are the goats with the naked eye

Best shot I could get with my telephoto lens

At this point I think we were all a little bummed, but the captain had one more trick up his sleeve. He took us a little farther out on the way back to an island where we saw lots of stellar seal lions and puffins!! Unlike the California seal lions the Stellar lions don’t really bark, they just growl and there were tons on the rocks. Unlike sea otters they can’t sleep in the water so they need to find land to sleep. And flying all around them were TWO kinds of puffins. Those little guys fly poorly and super fast so they were very difficult to get pictures of, but I got one of each kind (tufted and horned) and added two new birds to my bird list. That in and of itself was worth the trip for me, especially because the horned only come in during mating season and generally live on the high seas.

Lots of seals

Puffins were in the cliffs above them

This was the best flying shot I could get

But Ben got this beautiful shot with his 400MM lense. I'll be honest had some lense envy but $2K is outside of my price range plus the lense is huge and on the heavy side

But Ben got this beautiful shot with his 400MM lens. I’ll be honest I had some lens envy but $2K is outside of my price range, plus the lens is huge and on the heavy side

Lee got this shot of a horned puffin which I used for my Bird page

And I got very lucky and snagged these pictures of the tufted in the water

Pretty proud of these as they only have the curl during mating season and this was taken as the boat was pulling away.

Diving down, again this was sheer luck, and check out that water spray!!

Trying to capture the puffins was a lot of fun and really cheered me up about the day. Plus the company was great, and we had a bit of sun, so really how lucky am I? We even got to see more seals on the way back into the harbor close up. Their flippers are really something.

So overall I am glad we did it, and especially glad we did it with good friends. I would have loved a whale sighting of course, but we will save that for another special day. After the cruise we went back to the campground and ate burgers, brats, and hot dogs that Jo had brought and then had a multi-flavored cheesecake for dessert. That cheesecake (which I bought at Safeway) was awesome by the way. It was a nice birthday with great friends and kind of cool that we bookended our Florida sunset cruise with an Alaska Glacier cruise. It is not lost on me that now we live that kind of life!

Kelly, Bill, Ben, me (with my stylin new hat), Jo (who liked my hat so much she bought the same one), and Lee (don’t ask me about his hat lol…it was not my call.)

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June 29, 2016 by Lee and Tracy

First Time in Valdez

I covered the first 3/4 of the road to Valdez in my previous post First Time Walking on a Glacier so I won’t cover the first part of the journey again, but I will say that every drive is different depending on the light and the clouds and how much water has melted. The last 40 miles of the trip which was all new territory was absolutely amazing and definitely proved that this Highway deserves its designation as one of the most beautiful in America. It was cloudy going down and over Thompson Pass, but it was clear that the views on a clear day would be spectacular. Along with just seeing Valdez we also had a mission, to visit the campgrounds in the area and see which one would be best to stay at for my birthday. Kellie, Bill, Jo, and Ben will all be here and since we have booked a Glacier cruise in Valdez for one of the four days we are taking off, we all thought it would be best to stay close to Valdez. Plus I figure by that point I will want a change of scenery, so I had a list of campgrounds to check out along the way.

The first one is called Blueberry Lake and is a first come, first serve dry campground that costs $15 a night. The sits were well spaced and the views would be spectacular, but they only had a few sites that would fit our and Bill/Kelly’s rig. Since it was first-come, first-serve we regretfully had to pass but I would absolutely recommend staying here if you are passing through the area and it has space. It is buggy though because of the dense foliage so definitely come prepared.

The views from Thompson Pass

Blueberry lake campsite

Blueberry Lake

Next up was Keystone Pass which I was really looking forward to. I had been told that two major waterfalls were right off the road, but no description prepared me for the sheer majesty of these falls. I absolutely loved both of them and particularly enjoyed that there was plenty of parking and unlike most major falls you could walk right up to them. Phenomenal!!

The Keystone Canyon was beautiful even without the falls. See the water running alongside on the left

Bridal Veil stood over 300 feet tall and was stunning

You can see why it’s got its name

Then right down the road was Horsetail Falls. It was hard to pick a favorite, but I think I liked Horsetail better because you could climb the rocks and get “inside” the falls.

It was hard to tear ourselves away, but I knew we had to drive back through the pass to get home so next stop was Allison’s Point. To get to the campground we turned onto Dayville Road prior to reaching Valdez. Whether or not you are going to the campground I definitely recommend the drive as this is a major fish hatchery area and wildlife abounds. We didn’t see any bears but saw an eagle with it’s nest in a tree and two eagles down on a log in the bay. We spent lots of time getting pictures and Lee walked down on the bay and got VERY close to the two eagles getting some amazing shots.

My shot of the eagle flying to its nest

The nest …couldn’t see any babies but could hear them

The eagle stayed on watch and was not happy we were down below

Lee’s shot of the eagle on watch.

The bay

My shot from the road was ok

Lee’s from the ground was better

And this one was fantastic!!

The bay even without the eagles was beautiful and it’s a shame the campground is little more a pull off on the road. The views from the campground weren’t that great either although you could walk down to the water and see some amazing views.

Allison’s Point “campground”

The walk to the bay

If the sites would have been on the ocean proper I couldn’t have resisted, but we still thought we could do better. I was getting hungry though so we went straight to Valdez and ate at a local place called the Alaska Halibut House. It has been around for some time and at $21 for a full halibut basket (4 pieces of fish and some fries) the prices were pretty steep. The fish was local, and tasted ok plus my half order price of $11.75 was way more reasonable, still I certainly wasn’t blown away.

Alaska Halibut House

This was the $21 dollar portion size

The dock was pretty though and we went to a fantastic gift shop called Orca Bay Gifts. The place was crammed full of native alaskan made items and Lee was very patient as I went and looked at every single thing. They also had a small army surplus section in the back which kept Lee entertained and we ended up buying a couple of things for the beet harvest.

The view from the docks

Amphitheater at the docks

Civic Center

Marmots living in the rocks by the dock were very cool

The babies

Lee’s pic

Ferry Station

Orca Bay

The town was so beautiful with mountains and or water on all sides but unfortunately we didn’t much care for the town itself. I was really looking forward to visiting the Safeway and found it to be dirty and cramped with some empty shelves (they were out of milk) and rude staff. Plus the prices were no better than the small IGA we have in our town so definitely grocery runs to Valdez are off the table. The folks at the Halibut House weren’t that nice, the in town campgrounds were cramped little parking lots and really the whole town (except for that one gift shop) was a serious disappointment. So we headed back out of town and stopped out our last campground on the way, Glacier Campground. Glacier Campground is a military campground that is also open to the public and they had some sites with electric ($30 for 30 amp and $50 for 50 amp) and some older well wooded dry sites. It wasn’t bad by any stretch and was out of town so we thought this might be a good choice.

Safeway in Valdez

One of the group camping sites was really cool

One of the day use areas was really cool and had a little waterfall.

After getting some information to take back to the group (it’s first come, first serve), we continued down the road because there was a sign that said Valdez Glacier. Wow amd I glad we did, because stumbled across an amazing site. There is a lake that you can kayak on and pieces of glacier in the water that you can walk right up to. So, so cool and completely unexpected. Plus there is a large parking lot back there and no signs that say no overnight camping so we may try some boondocking back there if the group is up for it.

What we saw at the end of the road!

This piece had a huge rock in hit. For scale it was about the size of a car tire

Lee was fascinated by how the pieces of crystallized ice fit together like a puzzle

I wanted to walk on it

Success!!

You could see the water flowing under the ice

Can’t wait to do some kayaking

The professional outfit that was there had our exact same Sea Eagle

They even had a huge fire pit. This spot was awesome

Then we stopped in Old Valdez which is where the town stood prior to being completely destroyed by the Good Friday Tsunami of 1964. It was amazing how the land was taken over in such a short period of time. They had signs showing where the old buildings were and the views were once again spectacular.

Feeling excited we got to drive through Keystone Canyon again and this time we stopped at a tunnel in the rocks that was never finished because of a gun battle. Lee was very excited, but I refused to go all the way in. Instead I wandered down to another great waterfall and we sat on a rock chair overlooking to river and did some smooching. It was a great way to end a wonderful day and whatever you do if you visit Alaska, I definitely recommend the road to Valdez if not Valdez itself.

the “little” waterfall that didn’t even have a name

Lee was fascinated by the US Geological Survey camera

Cool rock chair someone built

The river view.

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links as they support our blog. Thank you. Search Amazon.com here

Camper Chronicles

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First Time on a Glacier Cruise

First Time in Valdez