Texas Gypsies: Valdez, AK Day 2

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

I can hardly believe how fast this summer has gone. We are loving it here in Valdez so have already decided to extend our stay to a total of 6 nights. It is so beautiful here even if it has been very foggy and lightly raining most of the time.

Because of the dense fog this morning, the boats leaving the harbor blew their horns starting about 6:30am this morning. I wanted to see what was going on, so I got up and dressed and took the camera outside. It was too foggy to even see the boats leaving.

However at the end of the RV parking lot was this tall antenna with these two eagles perched up there. The gulls were not happy about that and kept dive bombing them.

Now the eagles are saying "you watch one way and I'll watch the other way".

We are told that if you see 2 eagles together they are mates and eagles mate for life.

As I continued to walk around the area I saw....

Bunny rabbits of all colors are all around this town. A local told me that some people feed them and others shoot them.

I was also surprised to see this critter... looks like a marmot to me. I headed home since Tic had no idea where I'd gone.

After breakfast we decided to go see the spawning salmon again even though it was very foggy. We weren't sure if the fog was going to lift so we decided to make the best of it. We toured the Solomon Gulch Hatchery that was right there also.

The metal gate you see across the water is the weir talked about above. It is there on a temporary basis to try to prevent the salmon from entering this particular stream. This stream would not support the numbers of fish trying to spawn. It also allows upstream debris to pass over into the bay. It is removed after spawning season.

The fish hatchery was very interesting.

This is a small part of the salmon ladder. See the posters below describing about this facility.

Pink salmon are a 2-year fish while coho/silver salmon are a 3-year fish. Pink salmon is canned more than any other type of salmon. Coho/silver salmon is a sport fish prized for its fight and large size. This facility hatches both pink and coho salmon.

This sign was posted outside the spawning building. Below are the fish headed to the spawning building.

I had no idea what hatcheries actually did so found it interesting. After processing the fish, this hatchery sends the fish to a cannery where most of it is made into pet food.

This pretty waterfall is upstream from the fish weir above. This is the Solomon Gulch.

Valdez Glacier is accessible by car so that was our next exploration for the day.

As we drove up, this was our view. Tic zoomed in on the glacier. Below shows the lake at the bottom of the glacier.

The floating ice chunks are enchanting. This is only a few of the chunks.

Look at the waterfalls at the end of this glacier. We can only see a part of this glacier because of the fog.

This is another glacier we can see as we drive back into town. There are also waterfalls at the foot of this glacier. You would think it was warm here. While it is above freezing the highs have only been in the low to mid 50's.

I wanted to see the spawning fish and hopefully the sea lions at high tide again tonight. High tide was at 9:44pm

The sea lions are definitely there. Above you can see one catching his dinner. Below it looks like they are cuddling to keep warm. To survive adult sea lions need to eat 5%-6% of their body weight. Young sea lions need to eat double that.