Thursday July 8

Rained like crazy in Valdez. Filled up with gas and propane and headed out.

Checked out the Klutina River near Copper City again to see if the fishing action was heating up at all. It looked dead.

Drove up the road a bit more and stopped at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. What’s unique about Wrangell-St Elias you ask? Well, for starters it’s America’s largest National Park. It also has nine of the tallest peaks in North America. Most of the park is totally inaccessible. It has 4 mountain ranges within its boundaries. 90% of all Alaska’s wildlife species can be found within it. And…25% of it is glacier.

It also had first class bathrooms…..a welcome change.

Total nerd ball ranger kid gave a convincing talk about how the park represented freedom. By the end he had me convinced that I could preserve the park while living in Massachusetts…… by installing energy saving lights at home etc, etc.

Sometimes the job of park ranger appeals to me. They ride around, give talks, and answer questions. They don’t ever seem stressed about anything. It’s the isolation that would get to me. I think I’d feel trapped in the park. Sometimes I’d like to hit the Northwork’s, go to the movies, catch a sporting event…all things not readily available to the average ranger. It’s all give and take I suppose.

Checked out the only place in Alaska where a non-Native can operate a fish wheel. A fish wheel is this crazy mechanism that spins in the river and, when the fish are in the river, literally scoops up fish by the bucket load. Some interesting cats down there.

Got a few tips from a ranger on some great lakes to fish so I drove to Silver Lake near Chitina, pumped up the float tube and caught some monster rainbows, biggest around 20 inches. Fished ‘til after midnight…..because I could.

During the night, well the dusky night around 3am, I went out to water the daisies and was startled to find a moose and her baby strolling past the truck and on down Main Street in Chitina.

Wednesday July 7

Late nights make for late mornings…I need to break the cycle.

In the end, the LuLu Belle boat trip was a bit of a disappointment. Here’s a synopsis.

-Sea Otters, cool

-Puffins, only saw flying, not a great look.

-Humpback whales, ok but the Capt made no attempt to produce a “great” view. Kept his distance, which was far too great in my opinion. Whale watch out of Provincetown, Ma WAY better, same kind of whales too.

-Ice bergs….eh, cool for about 5 minutes. Get a glass of ice and fill it with water and use your imagination.

-Rained almost the whole time (nobody’s fault)

-The Captain was well, he had this way of speaking where he’d continuously decrease the volume of his sentence the longer it went on…..like.

“The most important thing you need to know about Alaska is……………..”

You were like what?? What’d he say??

I’d say the overall trip was pretty lousy……I did get a free popcorn though.

Back to the restaurant for a double order of tots, watched a little bear mayhem at Allison Point again and called it a day.

Tuesday July 6

Slept late. Rain. Low 50’s

Valdez is a seaside port most famous as the place where the Alaskan Pipeline terminates. Tankers leave the harbor every other day full of oil. The ships don’t go to ports in North America. It all goes to the Far East. Crazy right? The irony is that there is enough oil stored in Valdez to power everything in America for eight hours…that’s every car, home, everything….for eight hours. Yet Valdez, (and Alaska), have the highest gas prices in America.

Blogged my brains out at a harbor side eatery with a very good order of tater tots. I would have been pleased if Uruguay had beaten Holland just because of the annoying Dutch people watching the game.

Studied the different wildlife and glacier cruises and decided on one that appeared more down home and family operated. The boat was called the LuLu Belle. Leaves the dock at 1pm tomorrow.

Heard there were a couple of free flicks about the Alaskan pipeline and the great Alaskan earthquake at this place down the street. What I was envisioning, and what that experience was actually like were to very different things. The “theater” turned out to be a row of folding chairs in front of a 19 inch TV set and VCR. The whole shooting match was set up in the middle of a second hand clothing store called Sugar and Spice. Next to the TV were all these mysterious boxes covered with white sheets and a sign that read, “Don’t mess with these boxes. They are for Michael’s dialysis treatments, Thanks, Ann (Michaels Mom)” The flicks were from the 60’s…..black and white. Even scarier, it was the LuLu Belle lady that told me that they were great….hope the boat doesn’t sink tomorrow.

Headed back to Allison Point to catch some pink salmon. This grizzly bear and three cubs were roaming all over the place chowing down on the salmon. The crowds of people were funny, getting displaced from one area, running over to another, snapping photos like crazy. People were in a frenzy to get the perfect photo. Every one knows that there no more intense tourist then the Asians. They will literally box you out to and take your spot if they can’t get the best pic possible. One guy even rested his camera on my shoulder and snapped away.

At one point I had 15 bald eagles in my view. Click to enlarge the one photo above and count the amount of wildlife in it. You’ve got to look hard to see the eagle. Thing is, I took that photo not thinking that there was so much in it. I was pretty surprised to see it on the computer later.

Caught a bunch with the help of local legend Praviit, aka “Bobby”, seen in photo above. The guy kept a running commentary of everything going on for like 4 hours. He told me to put fish oil on my fly, and even gave me some in a Visene bottle. He said he was a member of the King Cobras from Thailand back during the Viet Nam war. He was a great fisherman and showed me all his photos, which he kept in a photo album in his trunk. We fished ‘til around 1am when a van full of these Ukrainian’s showed up, broke every rule in the book and cleaned house.