For our second day in Portage we decided to see all that our trusty Bird Hawk could handle. We went “rafting” down a swift river. We dropped the dirt bike off a ways down the road and parked the van at our drop in point. As we pulled out our deflated orange pool toy from the van, we couldn’t help but notice the people who pulled up next to us. They unloaded their $4,000 professional raft with three chair seats and gigantic oars. I couldn’t look away. I glanced at our kayak paddle, split in half for both of us to share, and looked at Adam. “Are we doing something really stupid or really awesome?” I asked. We both shrugged.
The water was streaming in from the surrounding glaciers and it was freezing, but the weather was sunny and perfect for our adventure. The ride had a few decent rapids where we had to paddle pretty hard to avoid all the big rocks. Many parts in the river were shallow and rocky. Not the best for a pool toy, but it was a good time. We pulled over once to fish and have a beer and then headed on our way. The whole ride only took about 2 hours.
Once again, the Bird Hawk pulled through!
After leaving Portage we headed back north past Girdwood, Bird and Indian. We stopped in Indian at Brown Bear Saloon for a delicious burger. Thanks to Adam’s friend Blaine for the suggestion!
We stopped in Anchorage to do some basic necessity things (laundry, showers, grocery shop, water fill up, etc.) and the next day headed toward sdoutheast Alaska. We were running out of Alaska time and only had a few stops left. The first on the list was Valdez which is 304 highway miles from Anchorage.
Many people have heard of Valdez because of the oil tanker named Exxon Valdez than ran aground about 30 miles from Valdez in 1989, causing an oil spill of 11 million gallons. Yikes. The town is situated in the Chugach Mountains and often referred to as, “Little Switzerland”. Something else to note about Valdez is it was greatly impacted by the Good Friday earthquake of 1964. This was the most destructive earthquake ever to hit south-central Alaska and measured 9.2 on the Richter scale. It basically engulfed the town, killed 33 people, and completely destroyed the waterfront. Since then, the town relocated to 4 miles away from the original site which is now known as “old” Valdez.
This is a beautiful place with a ton of wildlife, both land and marine. The Valdez Visitor Center has a grizzly skin for people to try on. Of course I got right at that…and Adam, not so much.
While we were in town we also ran into Orangie again. This time we decided to stop and talk to them since we had made so much eye-contact and done so much waving already. We pulled right next to them at the grocery store and they got out to say hello. They have been traveling full-time for 1.5 years and had plans to head toward South America. It sounds like a pretty desirable adventure.
We think this boat might be on The Deadliest Catch....?
Across from the town of Valdez, on the other side of the harbor, is a hatchery. I can’t even come close to explaining how insane this place was. And by “insane” I mean like nothing I have ever seen before. Something I didn’t know before this trip was that when salmon are going to spawn they return to the place they were born. So the thousands and thousands of fish that were born in a huge hatchery, all swim back to the same place at about the same time (depending on the type of fish and their life-cycle). The hatchery puts up a weir (like a big fish dam) so the fish can’t all swim up the river, since there are SO many of them.
The dark spots on the water are all fish.
Fish Fish Fish!
This creates mass chaos. Thousands of salmon are here because they innately know they NEED to swim to this place, and then upon arriving they are unable to get in. They just keep trying though, and it leads to a massive build-up of salmon. As you can imagine, this is a dream come true for nearby grizzlies and sea lions, especially once the tide goes out and dozens of salmon are left stranded on the sand. We sat by the hatchery for awhile and watched about 6-8 sea lions chomping down dozens of salmon. The fish had no where to go since they were trying to swim through a wall, and the sea lions couldn’t get enough. It was a scene you needed to see to believe.
All the dark spots in the water are fish.
The sea lion crew taking a break from eating.
Munch munch.
Trying to get through...
That night we tried our luck salmon fishing. We finally caught some real Alaskan salmon! It was a fun and exciting way to end our time in Valdez.