Bear Paw Camper Park Valdez, Alaska

Mileage:  43,712.

We had only a short distance to drive into Valdez this morning.  We descended from Blueberry Lake into the Keystone Canyon, magnificent with its rocky cliffs, and waterfalls…one vantage point more stunning than the next.

This area gets  a lot of snow.  In December of 2017 it snowed 40″ in one night.  This massive snowfall precipitated an avalanche that closed 30 miles of highway for days.  There are snow poles that resemble street lights.  They are there to guide the snowplows along the road edge.  In the 1950’s they had a winter when it snowed over 950 inches and another 24 hour period with 62″ of snow.

We are camped at the Bear Paw Camper Park right in downtown Valdez.  I am not usually excited about camping in a big gravel parking lot with lots of other campers…but this is Valdez!

We got settled and then went out to see the area.

We began by taking the road to the pipeline terminus.  No one is allowed to go back there but it is quite a facility.  The pipeline extends from Prudhoe Bay all the way south through the center of Alaska to Valdez.  It produces 1,000,000 barrels of oil each day.

While we were out of the car we spotted this pair of bald eagles.  They were so close.  I got to see them take off and return to the same branch together.  The eagles are so large and majestic when they fly.

We stopped at the Valdez Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery where they harvest and raise pink and Coho salmon for release into the wild.  It is a very interesting place.  Sally the salmon is a little early for the season.  She is the only salmon we saw in the fish ladder which resembles the way a salmon in the wild would swim upstream.  In a couple of weeks there will be more than 400,000 fish that make their way through.

We saw seals swimming in the Valdez harbor – one catching and eating a fish.  We passed a coyote on our way out.

We drove to Valdez Glacier View Park and walked around the water’s edge taking pictures and marveling at the icebergs in the lake.  Some of the broken pieces of ice were as big as our RV.

As a real treat…we got a carryout pizza for dinner!

After eating we walked around Valdez Harbor.

Sea Otter.

Valdez bunnies are everywhere.  10 years ago a local campground had about 10 bunnies hopping around.  Bunnies did what bunnies do and now they are all over the town.  I must have seen about 20 walking around today.

Tomorrow we look forward to a glacier cruise on the Lu-Lu Belle in the Prince William Sound.  We are going to the Columbia Glacier.