Valdez for Some Fishing

 Wednesday June 15, 2022 - It was a quick drive this morning to Tok, where we spent the morning doing laundry and groceries.  After catching up on errands we drove 20 minutes outside of Tok to Eagle Trail State Recreation Area.  We were the only ones camping in the campground (not even a camp host).  It had a few hiking trails so we did a quick hike before dinner and then enjoyed a fire, with wood we found around the campsite.

Pretty drive to Tok

more wildflowers lining the road

1 mile nature hike loop

Not sure what kind of wildflower this is, I need to find a better wildflower book than the small booklet I got in the Yukon

there were a few mosquitoes, although we've seen worse

our site at Eagle Trail SRA

We love campfires

Are we going to stay up THAT late?

Thursday June 16, 2022 - Today was a 4 hour drive to Valdez.  What great scenery...lots of really big snow covered mountains.  Just outside of Valdez we stopped at some waterfalls next to the highway.  We are staying 3 days at Allison Point, which is across the Valdez Bay from the town of Valdez.  The pinks come through here starting in mid to late June, so we thought we'd spend a few days here, enjoying the great view from our campground and fishing.  

views on the drive to Valdez, on the Tok cut-off highway

Mount Sanford, the 6th highest peak in the US, it's part of Wrangell-Elias National Park

Mailboxes in front of the view

lots of glaciers on the drive to Valdez

Bridal Veil Falls

Horse Tail Falls

Our campsite at Allison Point

fire pit with a view!

It's another parking lot, but the views make it worth it.  We pull in door-to-door and have a nice private spot

cool bench on the walk down to do some fishing

It was some tough fishing - high tide and windy

but fun to give it a try

We decided we'd each get a yearly fishing license ($100 non-resident), so we can fish whenever we get a chance.  

Friday June 17, 2022 - Kevin felt a little under the weather yesterday and today he woke up with a runny nose, so he did a test and found out he has COVID.  My test came back negative, so we're hoping I don't end up with it in a few days.  We mostly spend time with Gene and Gerry outside, so hopefully they avoid it completely.  Luckily he seems to only have a few sniffles, and we're hoping it only last a few days.  He spent the afternoon watching non-stop TV in the RV (which he was quite content to do) and Gene, Gerry & I walked down to the Solomon Gulch Hatchery.  It was a nice 1.5 mile walk down the bike trail that goes into Valdez.  The Hatchery had a great self guided tour, that provided lots of info about the facility.  The hatchery propagates Pink Salmon (humpies) and Coho Salmon (silvers).  The Pinks are a two year fish, meaning they will hatch, go to sea (the gulf of Alaska) and return to spawn here at Allison Point in mid July the following year.  Cohos are a three year fish.  They spend their first year and a half at the hatchery and then are released in the spring to begin the same cycle as the pinks. Pinks are the smallest of the 5 species of Pacific Salmon (average 3-5 pounds).  Cohos are a feisty sport fish and are bigger than the Pinks (average 8 pounds but can weigh up to 20 pounds).  The Cohos run in late Aug to early Sept at Allison Point and the Pinks run mid June through mid Aug.

Our view when we woke up at 6:00AM (looks like it's noon)

a little cloudy today

Uncle Gene and I decided to go fishing this morning at low tide and Uncle Gene found my Pink Pixie that I lost yesterday

Too bad the lure was our only "catch" today

Clouds across the mountains

Nice wide bike trail from our campground all the way to Valdez

Waterfall on the walk

The fish ladder at Solomon Gulch is a series of 29 resting pools, with a step at each level, designed to move the returning salmon into the facility so they can be spawned. 

20,000 salmon a day swim through this ladder during spawning season

A fish weir is located at the mouth of the stream next to the hatchery.  This weir moves with the tides and keeps salmon from swimming up the stream and directs them instead into the hatchery

lots of nice information on the self guided tour

These are the outdoor raceways that the fishing ladder feeds into.  The fish are held here until they are ready to be moved into the spawning building for processing

pretty views from the hatchery

love the flowers

Top of the World Highway and we made it to Alaska!

 Monday June 13, 2022 - Today we wandered around Dawson City, went to lunch at the Triple J, got to see Jack London's lost cabin and went to the evening show at Diamond Tooth Gerties. 

I'm a bad influence...Aunt Gerry and Uncle Gene are getting good at taking selfies!

we are addicted to poutine

the famous Canadian poet, Robert Service's cabin

Jack London's cabin that was discovered in the woods near Dawson City.  Half of the logs from this cabin were taken to Oakland California (where he also lived) and a replica cabin was built there.

These dredge scoops are found EVERYWHERE in Dawson City.  Our campground used them for flower beds and site numbers

Fun night at Diamond Tooth Gerties

Tuesday June 14, 2022 - Today we're headed for Alaska!  To get there the drive started with a free ferry across the Yukon, to the Top of the World Highway.    This road was  pretty rough, all gravel and hard packed with lots of twists and turns and lots of spots for huge sweeping vista views.  It took us 4 hours to go 108 miles.  What an absolutely beautiful drive.  The road was pretty empty of cars/RVs, so it felt like we had the highway to ourselves.  We spent an hour in Chicken, Alaska the first "civilization" along the highway.  The story goes that the town was named Chicken, because the founders wanted to name it Ptarmigan but didn't know how to spell it, so settled on Chicken (what they often call ptarmigans).  It was a fun little quirky town.  Then we drove about a half an hour to West Fork BLM campground, which was a beautiful, quiet spot for the night.

Waiting to get loaded onto the ferry

We were the last ones on (although the ferry only fit us, two big RVs and 3 motorcycles)

View of the Yukon River from inside the RV

looking out at Dawson City and the SS Klondike (paddlewheel)

we made it to the other side

That's the line to take the ferry to Dawson City, on the other side of the river and us driving off the ferry

This part of the blog is going to get boring, because every corner had another crazy view and I'm not one to turn down a picture taking opportunity.

snow covered mountains and clouds in the background 

lunch with a view

snow next to the "highway"

Top of the World Highway info.  The highway was started as a pack trail out of Dawson City after the gold rush.  In the 30s it was extended to the border and connected Chicken and Jack Wade to Dawson City.  

wildflowers and snow

A view looking down on the Alaska border.  The buildings are right above Mirabelle’s head

wild flowers for the road

Stats for our trip:  4096 miles to Alaska, 88 hours of drive time, average speed 46 mph, 16.6 mpg and 3 weeks on the road

a heart made of stones

Alaska border.  We ate all of our chicken before our border crossing because we heard that AK asks about chicken just like Canada, but of course they didn't ask us about chicken.

Poker Creek, AK - most northerly land border port in the US

Welcome to Alaska!

Tiny got us here, and boy is she dusty/muddy

more typical road on the Top of the World

Chicken, AK

The chicken musher

chickens of all sorts

the iconic chickens of Chicken

downtown Chicken

beautiful campsite overlooking a small lake

if you look closely you can see two caribou (i didn't have my good camera with me, so it's a terrible photo)

we had the "bubble" out in case the mosquitoes were bad, but we didn't need to use it

another nice campfire 

evergreens everywhere

that's a big, tall, skinny tree