THE ALASKAN ADVENTURE Day 48 July 3, 2009 Valdez, AK

We arrived in Valdez to a very nice surprise. The town must have heard we were coming here as they had a nice sign to welcome us.

We set up at the Bear Paw Campsite in a very nice site right on the water. It is next to where the boats come in and out of the harbor. It is very quiet and is very pleasurable just sitting out and watching the boats come and go.

We did find enough ambition in our bones to at least go for a walk around town and find out a little bit about Valdez.

It is situated at the head of a deep, stillwater fjord in the northeast section of Prince William Sound, Valdez is surrounded by the Chugach Mountains. They are the most heavily glaciated mountains in the Northwest. Valdez is the northernmost ice-free port in North America. The town covers 274 square miles. As of 2000, the population was 4,100

Valdez seems very small for a town with a population of 4100 people. The town is supported by three industries, fishing, tourism and oil.

Valdez is famous or not so famous for three things.

1) The town was destroyed along with Seward, Anchorage and Kodiak by the 1964 earthquake that hit 9.2 on the richter scale. In fact the epicenter was only 45 miles away. We are going to the old town site tomorrow.

2) The Exxon Valdez tanker struck an iceberg in 1989 at Bligh Sound spilling 10.8 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound. It was and still is the biggest oil spill in US History.

3) The Alaskan Pipeline ends in Valdez and they have a large oil filling terminal right on water. The pipe line is well hidden as it is buried before coming into town and we only got a glimpse to two of it on our drive down.

We finished our tour of town and headed back to the camper for a good nights sleep. Tomorrow we head for the bike trails.

It was a very relaxing day.