On Down Valdez Way

Spent the past Tuesday and Wednesday nights at the Tonsina River Lodge and RV Park right next to the Tonsina River and about 100 miles from the coast (Prince William Sound) and the port City of Valdez.

We really scored a gem here. Owned by a couple who emigrated from Russia 7 years ago, they served up gourmet food with a heavy slant towards their family recipes and hospitality from the old country - simply delicious and the best food of the trip since Ron and Susie's home on Orcas Island, WA and Phil's hang in Carmel Valley, CA - hands down. A lovely couple, Serge and Svetlana, initially moved from Kaliningrad to Miami Beach and could not handle the summer humidity and crowds. Somehow found this place for sale, sold everything they had in FL and trucked on up to AK. Still have sons and daughters and grandkids in Miami so they visit there in the winter - works great for them.

While visiting a local museum in Copper Center, AK I saw this photo of the lodge from back in the early 1900's gold stampede days.



Compare with the view today taken from more or less the same spot, interesting the log cabin is still here. Would love to have the skills to build a log cabin that could last 120 years in this harsh climate...incredible.


We took advantage of their great meals and ambience to wind down a bit from the road and just relax.

Did do some day trips in the Fit to explore the local area - Willow Lake on a perfect day will provide a mirror image of the surrounding mountains but it was unfortunately not happening during our stay. I desperately wanted this shot but this was about the best I could do. Sorry dear readers, I feel as though I've let you down.


Went back to that damn lake, by actual count, 6 times hoping to find the right lighting and wind free mirrored lake surface. Oh well, I'd give it an A for effort and C- for results, overall average at best.









Went up to the fancy shmancy Princess Cruise Lines Wilderness Lodge for cocktail hour one evening.
I had the Alaskan Amber and Debbie had the gin/blueberry something or other...fine evening with Mt. Sanford showing off in the background (a very, very small part of the grand Wrangell/St. Elias NP).


I went out and visited Copper Center, AK and took in a museum focusing on the stampede days. Figured what the hell, admission was free and I needed to waddle off those huge sourdough pancakes I just wolfed down for breakfast next door. It was actually quite well done and very informative with well thought out displays and exhibits - so the big spender from Cali dropped a finsky as a token donation.

Copper Center was the epicenter of the late gold stampede around 1900. Seems it was a bit of a scam by some unscrupulous promoters and many poor bastards wanting a rich quick solution to life got badly burned. No gold, spent a lot of money to get there and oh yeh, by the way, it gets cold up here with not much to eat in the winter months. Nearly 300 of them died due to scurvy and cold after finding zero, nada gold...bummer. The days of innocence can sometimes last for an eternity.

So, you wanna go a gold prospectin' up here in the Copper River basin? Click on this to see the short list of the things you'll need for a year.


While in Copper Center I passed by a building with a sign out front that said 'Town Hall'. Nice paved driveway, right next door to the US Post Office - looked totally legit to me - so I pull in and get accosted by an old fart - I thought maybe he was the mayor and I took his parking spot. Is it OK to park here? He gives me an emphatic 'nooo' and informs me that I'm on private property. Oh, says I, thought this was a public facility and pointed at the town hall sign...sorry old guy, I mean all I wanted was a damned map of this piece of crap town. Oh that, well that's just a joke, says he. Guess I'm not yet used to this Alaskan style of sign humor. So if you guys want to move to AK and make an immediate humorous impact with your neighbors and visitors alike, put a town hall sign up in your front yard.

Thursday morning we headed off to Valdez, AK to see the Worthington Glacier and take in the vibe and history of Valdez.

First stop was the jaw dropping Worthington Glacier, billed as the most motor vehicle accessible glacier in the world. True enough, the parking lot was a mere quarter mile from the toe of the beast. Hiked on up to the toe and went a bit further - maybe a half mile or so - up the left moraine alongside of the glacier until the trail started to get a bit sketchy. I'm too old for bouldering and dodging crevasses, I'll leave that for the younger set and the idiotic European tourists walking around with open toed sandals, shorts and knee high socks.
That being said, a very worthy glacier indeed.


Here's the blue whale with Fit in tow taking a breather amongst the alpine tundra after summitting the infamous Thompson Pass. Many a gold stampeder cashed in their last chips on this summit back in the day.


Then we went on into Valdez and booked up on the waterfront for the night. Big time fishing seaport and home to the Valdez Terminal where the Trans Alaska oil pipeline ends and the Arctic Ocean crude from Prudhoe Bay is transferred to tankers.

The town really did not do much for us apart from the interesting history and the waterfront was pretty cool. Other than that it appeared to be a mostly industrial center and transportation link between shipping and trucking. Lots of trucks rolling thru town at all hours hustling goods to and fro the port and the interior of AK. But, the mountains/glaciers surrounding the town on 3 sides with fjord like Prince William Sound on the fourth more than made up for that...very picturesque and pretty. A must see for sure, glad we visited.

Caught this nice shot of a small iceberg (check out that blue color) at the City's Valdez Glacier Lake Park - now, I ask you - how many US cities have a glacial lake complete with functioning icebergs as part of their City park system? Awesome!


Went in and checked out the museum dedicated to the 1964 Good Friday earthquake that wiped out the entire town - yes, the entire town -  and took 30 lives. Old Valdez was built on top of Valdez Glacier runoff at Prince William Sound and was made up of unconsolidated gravel/sand/glacial till and had a very high water table being right next to the Sound. When that combination gets violently shaken, liquefaction/quicksand results and all bets are off the table - run like hell!

Many incorrectly assumed that a huge tsunami wave generated by the earthquake is what did the old town in. But not really, the liquefied soil lowered the town's elevation by 9 feet - that's right, I said 9 feet! - in about 3 minutes time and the tidal water just rushed on in and did its thing. The quake also moved the City horizontally a distance of 30 feet! Largest earthquake to strike North America and the second strongest ever recorded anywhere - the largest was in Chile a year earlier and it wiped out the town of Valdivia under very similar circumstances.

With a City now 9 feet below sea level there was no other option but to pack up what was left and move to another location. The Army Corps of Engineers came in with the bucks/resources and two legacy families with roots to the pioneer days of Valdez DONATED the land for the new City. The land was situated firmly on bedrock this time and the new City of Valdez was born. Residents were offered replacement homes for free however many had had enough and moved on. Some of the surviving structures from Old Valdez were moved to New Valdez and I checked some of them out, very interesting.

Just so you don't get the impression that this was a little deal - Old Valdez was a legit, bustling port City with hundreds of residences, car dealerships, grocery stores, hotels, bars, factories, wharves, post office, restaurants, schools, churches - the whole gambit and all wiped from the face of the earth in 180 seconds time, wow. Most of the lives were lost at the wharf where on any given workday hundreds of workers would have been but this being Good Friday at 5:34 PM over the Easter holiday it was mostly empty (except for 30 poor souls), thank God.

I then sauntered on out Dayville Road which leads to the Valdez Terminal.

High security was strongly evident and if you get on the premises watch your speed.


Here's my theory on how this particular speed limit sign came to be. A traffic engineer must have specified that speed limits on the site should be less than 30 MPH so some smart ass in the sign shop came up with this. Sound plausible? More of that Alaskan style sign humor I guess. Think I'm going to suggest an ad slogan to the AK State Board of Tourism..."Come to Alaska and Enjoy our Hilarious Signage".

To that point, I have collected quite a nice grouping of photographs on bizarre, confusing and downright dangerous roadway signage, etc on this trip. Perhaps a future post topic?...that right there is what we in the blog business like to call a teaser.

OK, we're off at a very slow pace to Anchorage, should be there for the 4th of July.

Before Anchorage we're planning stops at Lake Louise, Matanuska Glacier and some parks off the old Glenn Highway around Palmer/Wasilla, home of ex - gov Sarah Palin. I'll let you know if we can see Russia from the kitchen window of our motorhome.

Later good people, hope you all enjoyed this one as much as I enjoyed experiencing and sharing it with you.
Take care.