THE ALASKAN ADVENTURE Day 51 & 52 July 6 & 7, 2009 Valdez, AK Day 4 & 5

We are in a haze. I know that is normal for me but even Kathy is in the same situation.

The area north of Fairbanks and west of Denali are being inidated with forest fires, there is 62 currently active. They are only able to fight some of them but I don't believe there are any populated areas in danger. What it has done is put a lot of smoke into the air. You can see from the pictures below even Valdez which is 200 miles away is covered with a very heavy haze of smoke. The first two pictures are shots from our campsite on the 4th of July and the other two were taken on the 6th of July. The view has all but disappeared.

The haze has curtailed our sight seeing activities as it is hard to see what you can't see. So we have stayed put in Valdez and done a lot of bike riding and touring the town. Valdez is the nicest town ( in our opinion ) we have see to date in Alaska. It is a seaport and oil town but you would never know it from the way it is kept. The area is clean and fresh and they have made the oiler filing station as unobtrusive as possible. We have really enjoyed our time here as well as the break from travelling. It is the longest we have stayed in any one spot during the entire trip.


On one of our hikes Kathy took a few pictures of some little birds ( ducks ) and if you notice it looks like it is snowing. This is fluff from the cottonwoods trees and there is lots of it. There is a proper name for it but to us it is fluff.




Last night we got everything packed up and went over the other side of the bay to the fish hatchery. Most nights the hatchery gets a visit from a grizzly or two as the salmon have returned to the hatchery. As our luck would have it we didn't get a visit from a bear where we were sitting. A sow did come down to the beach about a 1/2 mile up the road but we missed it.


While we were waiting in the truck as the mosquitoes were bad we watched a couple of sea lions create a little havoc amonst the salmon. The salmon are right against the gates to the hatchery and it would be like a smorgsborg to the sea lions. They are too far away for a picture.


Of course when you have fish, you have Eagles and there was a bunch of them going after the fish. I found out something I did not know and that is that Eagles are scavengers as well as hunters.


We didn't see any bears but we did see a nice sunset. The smoke in the air enhaunced the sun going down over the mountains. It was a pretty sight.















We gave up around 11:30 and headed back to the RV site as we are headed out in the morning. We are off to McCarthy and Kennicot which is about the only place you can get to drive into the Wrangell - St.Elial National Park.