Sam And Saundra's Year Long Adventure - Part 141

Sam and Saundra’s Year Long Adventure – Part 141

Alaska

7/1/09 – Glennallen, Alaska – Tolsona Wilderness Campground

This is one of our shortest travel days.  Sam drives about 30 miles to our next destination.  Leaving the Klutina River was not easy!! I know for a fact that there are still fish in that small river – a fact!  I don’t want to be greedy – but I want to catch a lot of them.  Maybe later.  We say thanks and goodbye to two wonderful families.  Both couples came to Alaska due to being in the service, and opted to stay.  Rob and Tammi retired from the service and are now working new jobs.  They have two older youngsters that just left home (youngest is now 18). Art and Ruby have two young boys with them now, around ages 8 and 10.  Both couples were gracious in sharing their time, gear and fun. Up until meeting them, we worried about kids living and growing up here.  It seemed like they would miss out on so much.  Now we know better!  Much better! 

Klutina River

We travel back towards Tok on the Richardson Highway. We have no intention of returning there.  Instead, we make a left onto the Glenn Highway towards Glennallen.  This intersection is known as ‘The Hub’.  You can turn to go to Anchorage, go back to Fairbanks, or go to Valdez-and the Marine Highway. We have been to Glennallen before, but this time Sam is missing the sharpsies in his finger.  Glennallen is where Dave, a family friend, spent much of his childhood.  His parents still live here.  Although I thought we were going to meet Dave today, it turns out I was mistook and we will see him when he actually gets to Alaska.  Glennallen has a community college, a bible college and the ‘Grade School through High School’ for this section of Alaska.  It is a very active small town. 

Sky View

The Glenn Highway is the main street.  A few paved, but mostly unpaved, side streets run from the highway.  Most of the businesses are on the highway and most of the residences are not.  The city limits is basically from the ‘The Hub’ junction turn to the library, way down the road. It has two main grocery stores, 2 main gas stations, Fish and Wild life offices, Urgent Care and Clinic, several restaurants and churches, all right there in plain sight.  They have a whole community that may not be so easy to see.  The mountains that are visible from Glennallen are fantastic.  I have become enamored of Drum Mountain.  Although it is the shortest of the big three that you can see from here, it looks bigger because it is closer.  It has snow, just like Sanford, which is higher but further away.  The third is an active volcano in the Wrangell Range.

Main Office

We go past Glennallen about 12 miles and turn at a sign that announces Tolsona Wilderness Campground.  We travel away from the highway about a mile and there it is.  A nice, nature-embracing campground with 80 campsites, many with full hook ups, all at the river’s edge.  We are assigned a space that receives wifi - most of the time. I am happy.  There are a lot of mosquitoes, so in addition to our regular set up, we put up our pop-up with screen.  We settle in for a rest period.  Then we realize that it is not ‘night’ and take off to do some lake viewing. 

Tolsona Lake

We start with Lake Louise.   About 14 miles down the road, turn right and go another 20 or so miles.  Very beastie/heavsies road. Lake Louise is a very large lake, but it has few places for shore fishing.  The wave size does not encourage fishing from a fold-a-boat.  It is attached by water to another lake, but we can’t get there from here. I am pretty sure this is mostly a winter ice-fishing area. On our way back to the main road, we try and view/assess all the smaller lakes.  There are so many.  Most are stocked with fish.  Most of them are safe from intruders, unless they have an ATV or in winter, a snow mobile. We do see three possibilities that we will return to. We go rest.

Sam And Saundra's Year Long Adventure - Part 140

Sam and Saundra’s Year Long Adventure – Part 140

Alaska

6/29/09 - 6/30/09 – Copper Center, Alaska – Klutina River

  

We jump out of bed, hurry through breakfast and rush to get a spot on the river.  No real reason to rush, there was plenty of room.  We are excited! Two Alaskan families that are camping and spending their vacation together, offer to help us learn the fish-catching secrets of the Klutina River sockeye salmon.  We give total attention to them as they redo our lines, give us lessons on how to cast, drift, drag-bob the yarn thing and in general catch a sockeye.  I really liked it, and although I think it may take more then one lesson to learn the system – it helped immensely. 

Sam's First

On Monday, Sam caught two and I finally caught one.  On Tuesday, Sam caught one and I caught two.  I don’t know about Sam, but I caught mine while ‘practicing’ my lesson steps. When my last fish chose my hook to bite, I saw it jump in the center of a depression in the raging water flowing over some pretty big and solid rocks.  Then it took off downstream, with Sam and net trying to keep up and me following slowly just trying to reel in faster than the line was reeling out.  Sam got all sorts of advise – the one that made the most sense to me was – tighten the drag.  Done that. 

My First

We fished for hours. At some point, we drove to every Lodge, Café, Gas station, and even back to Glennallen, searching for more fishing gear – mostly weights.  Very, very fast water.  We had more fun then you would think – just throwing those do-hickies in the water and reeling them back in.  Even when there wasn’t a fish around stupid enough to bite the yarn.  What fun.  Sam BBQ’d up a small one for dinner and it was delicious.  Ready for more. 

As Dark As It Gets

Sam And Saundra's Year Long Adventure - Part 139

Sam and Saundra’s Year Long Adventure – Part 139

Alaska

6/28/09 – Copper Center, Alaska

We decided last night to try and get up early for a change.  This should not be difficult – Sam was a 5 am’er and he used to drag me up at that time too.  This should NOT be difficult.  Luckily, with the use of an alarm and hefty internal fortitude (?) – we got up at 6 am. We take off in Brutus, following our neighbors.  Sam suddenly swerves to the side of the road and stops.  A Grizzly had decided to give a show and we had to pull over to help take pictures of him. Some other gawkers actually got out of their vehicles and walked toward him – way too close.

Valdez Grizzly

We made it to the church services dock at 7:45 am. We are going to attend the Chapel Of The Sea service and board the MV Lu-Lu Belle at 8 am.  The service was very good and the location of the service was inspiring.  We were in the middle of the nearest arm of the Prince William Sound.  The boat and ‘cruise’ were donated by the owners of the MV Lu-Lu Belle. The service is provided by the Baptist Church of Valdez.  It was nice to meet others who are ‘on the road’ in such a glorious place for such a glorious reason.

Starting Place For Sunday Services

Then, we have to leave.  Our Sound-side neighbors from Minnesota, Kenny and Annette, are also leaving today.  They were great neighbors, sharing their experiences, humor and knowledge.  We have met and spent time with several people who are on ‘adventures’ of their own. Though we may never see them again (well maybe at the sani-dump line), we will remember them. We can’t help but look back at the beauty of Valdez as we climb away from the town.  Brutus gets a good workout following the same (only) land route back inland.

One Last Picture Of The Glacier

The One And Only Picture Of The Sani-Dump

Sam has been doing a little ‘talking’ here and there with fishing guys and has decided we are going to stop at Klutina Charters Campground to see if we can catch some salmon. Silly me, I thought we were going to do that later in July.  Luckily, there were some dry camp spots available and we took one.  This campground is located at Copper Center, in Copper Valley on the Klutina River.  It is about 20 miles to Glennallen. It is a private, fairly primitive campground, which is full of scads of people.  Compared to Valdez, it wasn’t very pretty.  We did not care.  We are going to fish…   After watching others, we go out and try.  We tried and tried and tried and gave up for the night.

Sam And Saundra's Year Long Adventure - Part 138

Sam and Saundra’s Year Long Adventure – Part 138

Alaska

6/27/09 – Valdez, Alaska

Today is a rest day.  I clean the trailer.  Sam works on the outside of Brutus and the trailer.  We shop, buy some crab, visit the Valdez Glacier, pick up some glacier rock at the glacier lake with … icebergs, just below Valdez Glacier.  To get there, we only had to go to Valdez, turn right (left would have put us in the sound) and drive about 2 miles.  Just past the Glacier State Campground and there it is.  Not a big climb or anything.  Up above is the glacier and down below it the glacier lake. 

Valdez Glacier

We are told that they get 500+ inches of snow fall on Valdez at sea level in a normal year.  Lots. We return to the trailer and I spend a lot of time doing little.  Sam does the same, except he has access to the internet and I don’t.  Yes that was envy – but I am working on it.  Sam worked on his street bike and went out and used the extensive paths the town has made.  More than ‘meals on wheels for bears’.  The view outside is stark raving wonderful.  We eat King and Dungeness crab until we are ready to burst. Then it is time for more rest. 

Down Town Valdez

Sam And Saundra's Year Long Adventure - Part 137

Sam and Saundra’s Year Long Adventure – Part 137

Alaska

6/26/09 – Valdez, Alaska – Glacier Tour  (cont.)

We started the return trip – but it wasn’t over yet.  We got close to some islands and saw a huge eagle’s nest in the trees, about 2/3 of the way up.  Two eagles were perched above it, making sure we left things as we found it.  We then headed for more open water to look for whale.  The weather had turned warm, the water had remained very calm and the hump-back whales were wanting to show off.  At least five were sighted and one picked us to admire him.  He came up and played, then dived – showing his tail ‘fluke’ four times.  I got good pictures of two and Sam got at least one more. They are such special creatures.  We wished we could have seen a killer whale, but we did get to see two more hump back whales play. 

Tail Wave

We were taken to an area that normally has a population of both black and white puffins and the horned puffins with the little bit of yellow, both with big orange beaks.  They are much smaller then the ‘close up’ pictures make them.  I had a hard time even seeing them.  So did Sam.  We did catch glimpses and some of the other tourists with fast cams, got some pictures.  We then headed back in earnest.  The porpoise caught up and they were given their turn to show us their best.  Such big, healthy animals.  Sam caught pictures of their splashing, but they stayed mostly just under the water.  My pictures did not turn out – but I will remember them. 

Blue Ice

We were served a very good clam chowder and spent the rest of the trip watching the wildlife and scenery.  One area of multiple small islands are used by boaters who need to rest but do not need to re-supply.  There were two small boats and one larger one tied up in the ‘coves’ of the islands, but there are no beaches or land use.  Just safe moorage.  The captain tells us about the Exxon Valdez wreck and the version that local Valdezians believe is the closest to the truth.  Very interesting.  Only about a tenth of the oil was actually cleaned up. I may try and learn more. We made it back to the dock very close to 7 pm.  It was still very sunny – a glorious day. 

Famous Falls

Every second was worth the cost of this trip.  Everything we experienced was fabulous and I am unable to tell you what made it that way – or if something was different, if we would have felt different.  I think that the weather, as in lack of rain, helped. Otherwise, I think that if we only saw the icebergs and Meares Glacier we would have been in awe.  With every second so filled with beauty and nature at it’s best – we are hooked.  We will be back.  It will draw us here. 

Most Awesome!

We reluctantly leave the boat and head back to our beautiful camp spot at the side of the sound.  The fishermen camped in tents near us, caught some and cleaned them down by the water (low-tide).  The seagulls and eagles were circling, waiting to get the best morsels.  I got the best picture of an eagle.  He ended up getting a fish head and flying away.  We plan to sleep in tomorrow.