Valdez to Haines

We departed Valdez on Thursday, 23^rd and drove to Tok, Alaska where we overnighted at the Tok Village RV Park. We walked next door to Fast Eddie’s Restaurant for dinner.

We left Tok on Friday, headed for Destruction Bay, Yukon Territory about 225 miles away. The border crossing went smoothly, but we can’t say the same for the Alaskan Highway.  At first the road was fairly smooth, but then we ran into from many frost heaves. Frost heaves are the result of the permafrost melting below the road causing the road surface to literally drop. It’s very hard on the RV suspension, unless you really slow down and we did. The Alaskan Highway between Tok and Destruction Bay has always been notorious for frost heaves.

Then we ran into miles and miles of road construction. Sections of the road construction projects (to fix the frost heaves) were gravel, but the surface had serious washboard and it shook the RV and contents really bad, even when we slowed down to 15-20 mph.

In early-July I included a photo of fireweed, with its beautiful magenta color. We have seen colorful fireweed all across Alaska the past month. The flower petals were only half-way up the stem in early-July, but now they are nearly to the top, which is supposed to indicate the end of summer or only six weeks until winter in Alaska.

We overnighted Friday night at Congdon Creek Campground, a Yukon Territory government campground on the shores of Kluane Lake. The lake is big, wide and about 50 miles long, and surrounded by mountains. The campground is known to have bears and Vince & Lisa saw a grizzly on the shoreline before we got there. The campground provides free firewood and we enjoyed a nice campfire before dinner. Vince pan fried the halibut cheeks we had from our halibut catch and they were amazing.

Saturday morning we drove about 60 miles to Haines Junction, refueled the motorhome, then headed down the Haines Highway, about another 150 miles to Haines. We had reservations at the Oceanview RV Park, next to the boat harbor, right on the Lynn Canal. There is only one row of back-in campsites and we have a great view of cruise ships passing on their way to/from Skagway. There are several resident bald eagles and bears nearby.

We volunteered to help Joyce, the RV park owner, with her twice-a-week crab feed. It’s a potluck where you pay $10 for a Dungeness crab and bring a side dish. About 3PM we went with Joyce to the boat harbor next door where we got 30 crabs from a local fisherman, fresh right off the boat. Then we helped kill and clean the crabs at the dock. We took them back to the RV park and iced them down. We later steamed the crab for the 6PM dinner.

We’ll be here for a week, the longest we’ve stayed anywhere on our trip. Monday we have tickets to take a Alaska Fjordlines boat day trip to Juneau. The boat stops along the way to watch whales and other sealife. We’ll have about 3 ½ hours in Juneau for lunch and sightseeing and also stop by the Mendenhall Glacier on the way back.  

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Anchorage to Valdez

We stayed Sunday night in Anchorage at the Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson Army campground. Vince & Lisa grilled the Black Bass filets for dinner. The fish had good firm texture and big flakes. It reminded me of Chilean Sea Bass. 

Monday, July 20^th, we ran a few errands to provision for a week or so. Julie and I then washed the motorhome at our campsite at JBER.

We headed out at noon, with an overnight stop at the Grand View Café and RV Park on the Glenn Highway. It was only about 100-miles from Anchorage, but took over 3-hours to drive because of the narrow, windy road.

Along the way we stopped at a pullout to see and photograph the Matanuska River, another Alaskan braided river. Further up the road we stopped to see the Matanuska Glacier, the main source of the Matanuska River

 

The Grand View Café and RV Park was a very nice RV park with a small lodge and café where we enjoyed pizza for dinner. We watched several Dall sheep on the mountains behind our campsite.

Tuesday morning we enjoyed breakfast at the café before heading out. We stopped in Glennallen to refuel and then turned south down the Richardson Highway, heading towards Valdez.

We passed the entrance to the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. It is America’s largest national park at 18.2 million acres. Four major mountain ranges meet in the park (Wrangell Mountains, St. Elias Mountains, Chugach Mountains, and the Nutzotin Mountains, which are an extension of the Alaska Range). The national park includes nine of the 16 highest peaks in the U.S.

Further down the Richardson Highway we stopped to take photos of the Worthington Glacier and later, the Bridal Veil Falls before reaching Valdez.

We checked into Bear Paw RV Park II, a small RV park next to the Valdez marina on the Port Valdez bay off of Prince William Sound. We watched many commercial fishing boats leave and return to the marina throughout the day and night from our campsites. Three sea otters entertained us as they played in the marina just a few yards up from our campsites.

After dinner, and a stop for ice cream sundaes, we drove around the bay to the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery to watch the salmon. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of coho and pink salmon in the water trying to make their way back to where they were born at the hatchery after a year in the Gulf of Alaska.

We spotted a juvenile bald eagle in a nearby tree and another on the beach eating a salmon. We also saw four sea lions off shore, who were waiting until the tide came in and with deeper water, they could go get some salmon to eat.

 

We were watching for bears that frequent the area around the fish hatchery, especially when the salmon are spawning, but they had not shown up by the time we left around 10PM (and still very light out).      

Wednesday we washed our truck, then enjoyed lunch with Vince & Lisa at a local Chinese restaurant. After lunch we went to Peter Pan Seafoods, on the other side of the boat harbor, to look in their retail store and buy some seafood.

Peter Pan Seafoods, headquartered in Seattle, has been in business since the early-1900s, with four processing plants in Alaska. The Valdez plant is their newest processing plant. It is the only fresh/frozen/cannery operation in Valdez, processing all varieties of wild salmon as well as halibut and black cod.

Vince went fishing out by the fish hatchery after we got back from lunch. He caught his limit of six salmon in less than two hours. He "snagged" six pinks (Humpie salmon), cleaned them and plans to smoke the salmon once he gets back to Colorado.

 

We leave tomorrow (Thursday) morning for Tok, Alaska, about a 250-mile drive. It'll take some time to drive as we go back over Thompson Pass and the highway between here and Tok has many frost heaves that we slow down for. There is also some road construction between Glennallen and Tok.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Homer, AK

Wednesday, July 15^th, we left Soldotna and drove 75-miles to Homer, Alaska. It was a cloudy day so we could not see the snow-covered volcanoes across Cook Inlet. We had to stop suddenly on the highway as a baby moose was running down the grassy area next to the shoulder on our side of the road. Vince & Lisa were right behind us and also stopped just as the baby moose ran across the road in front of their truck.  

The weather was cloudy, rainy and cool on Thursday and Friday. We did go down to the Homer Spit for lunch on Thursday. The Homer Spit is a narrow, 4.5 mile long peninsula extending out into Kachemak Bay. The Homer boat harbor is also located there.

The Homer Spit has several campgrounds and boardwalks with many shops and restaurants. After lunch, we walked around and browsed in the shops. We saw a motorhome that looked like its owners were also full-timers, like us, living in their motorhome. However, they might have to remove their flower boxes before they hit the road again.

 

On Saturday, we took the Rainbow Connection from Homer across Kachemak Bay to the little village of Seldovia, accessible only by boat or plane. On the way over we visited several bird rookeries where we saw Common Murre, Cormorant, and Tufted Puffins. We also saw a few Bald Eagles and Sea Otters on the way over.

After arriving at Seldovia, we had lunch and then headed out for a hike on a trail through the woods to a local beach. We wandered around town after the hike and went back to the harbor where we spotted two sea otters.

 

On the boat ride back to Homer, the crew spotted a pod of 2-3 Fin Whales, which they said were very rare to see in Kachemak Bay. Fin whales are normally 60-85 feet in length and weigh about 80 tons, the 2^nd biggest whale on earth (only blue whales are bigger). We also spotted a couple of humpback whales on the way back to Homer.

 

We got back to the dock around 6:15PM and headed to the Salty Dog, then across the street to Captain Pattie’s Fish House for dinner where we enjoyed some Alaskan seafood.

 

After dinner we drove out east of Homer to see several glaciers that are just on the edge of the Harding Icefields. On the way back to Homer, Julie and Lisa spotted a moose cow and her baby and we were able to get a few photos.

 

 

We left Homer on Sunday and had plans to boondock in a pullout along the highway, but there were so many cars and RVs parked in the pullouts, we decide to head on into Anchorage.      

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Seward to Soldotna

On Sunday night we enjoyed grilled halibut steak for dinner. We’re not sure, but we think the steaks we all enjoyed came from Julie’s 55-pound halibut.

Monday, July 13^th, Vince and I went on a fishing charter with Seward Army Resort. There were 15 of us on the boat and it was a miserable day weather-wise…cold, cloudy, foggy at times, and raining most of the day. After about a 3-hour ride out of Resurrection Bay into the Gulf of Alaska, we reached our fishing spot for halibut.

It was about 250-feet to the bottom of the ocean floor there where we were fishing for the halibut. Our fishing lines had 4-pounds of lead weight attached to take the hook and bait to the bottom. All was well until you had to reel it back up, especially with a halibut on the hook. It took a lot of effort to reel it back up. However, both Vince and I caught our limit of two halibuts each.

Later we moved to a new spot to fish for black bass. I’d never seen one before, but they were fun to catch. All in all, other than the lousy weather, it was a good day of fishing. Vince caught 2 halibut, 2 black bass, 2 silver salmon, and 2 pink salmon. I caught 2 halibut, 2 black bass, and one silver salmon.

 

On the way back, we stopped briefly to watch a pod of humpback whales “bubble feeding”. Again, it was amazing to watch the whales.

 

Julie and Lisa met us at the resort fish house where our deck hand had fileted all our fish for us. We decided that we had way too much fish (about 130 pounds) to take with us and decided to ship it back to the USA via FedEx. We only kept some salmon and halibut to eat over the next two weeks, before we cross the border back into Canada on our way to Haines, AK.

Today we left Seward and drove about 90-miles to Soldotna. On the way, we crossed the Kenai River several times and saw many, many fishermen on the banks and in boats fishing, as the red salmon have started running. The salmon are coming back to spawn and die in the place that they were hatched.

We leave Soldotna tomorrow and drive about 75-miles to Homer where we plan to stay four days.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Seward, AK

We had an awesome fishing trip with Puffin Fishing Charters on Friday, with perfect weather, sunny skies and calm waters.

The first thing the fishing guide asked everyone was if any of us had brought any bananas with us. I'd never heard of this before and had to look it up on the Internet.

According to Snopes.com, “While the superstitions involving fishermen and their boats are almost too numerous to mention, one particular entry in that category appears to attach almost solely to those who engage in sport (rather than commercial) fishing.

Bananas are deemed unlucky by recreational fishermen and those catering to that trade. Usually this rumor takes the form of the fish not biting on the day when bananas were discovered onboard, but mechanical breakdowns and other mishaps are also pointed to.”
We left Seward and went south out of Resurrection Bay out into the Gulf of Alaska about 2 hours out to first go halibut fishing. The water was about 100-feet deep at the fishing spot and we used 3-lb weights on our line to get the baited hook down to the bottom where the halibut were. We also fished several different other spots on the way back for halibut and silver salmon.

Counting all of us, there were 10 people on our charter and everyone caught their limit of halibut (2 each), silver salmon (3 each) and bonus of a rock fish and 8-10 grey cod.

It was about a 12-hour boat ride plus an hour or so of photo taking and fish cleaning once we got back. On the way back we saw a pod of humpback whales “bubble feeding”, but more on that later. Afterwards, the four of us went to the fish house here at the Seward Resort where we took the skin off the halibut, cut all the fish into nice size filets and vacuum-packed it all -- our freezers are full.

Julie caught the biggest halibut, estimated at over 55-pounds, plus another halibut, 3 salmon and a rockfish. Lisa caught 2 halibut, 3 salmon and 4 cod. Vince and Steve each caught 2 halibut and 3 salmon.   

Saturday we went on a full-day Kenai Fjords National Park Northwestern Glacier cruise with Major Marine Tours. About an hour out of Seward, we stopped to watch a pod of 12-18 humpback whales “bubble feeding”. It was the most amazing thing we had ever seen in our entire lives, no kidding. When we visited Seward four years ago, we saw two humpback whales work together to “bubble feed”. This time there was a whole team of 12-18 whales working together. 

According to the tour booklet, “It’s a very unusual way for humpback whales to catch their food. The make nets to catch the fish called “bubble nets” with the air they release from their blow holes. The whales dive deep, and then swim up in a spiral pattern, all the while releasing a steady stream of bubbles. As the bubbles rise, they form a “bubble net” which traps their fish or plankton that the whales are pursuing. Then the whales swim up through the center of the bubble cage with their jaws open and capture a gulp of food.”

You can see the humpback whales in a circle with their jaws open in the below photos.

 

 

 

Later we also saw a pod of 5-6 orca whales, Dall porpoises, harbor seals, sea otters, bald eagles, puffins, and several other bird species. We saw many glaciers, but went as far as the remote Northwestern Fjord to watch tidal glaciers “calving”.

 

 

 

On Sunday, July 12^th, we moved from the Stewart Army Resort to the Stewart municipal campground overlooking Resurrection Bay. It’s only $30/night with water and electric and we have a fantastic view out the front window. We had to move because the Resort didn’t have open sites on Monday night when Vince and I are going on another fishing charter.

Steve & Julie Cornelius