The Re-Write (Day 4) Don’t Go Chasin’ Waterfalls. Wait… Actually, Go For It! 🏞️

So the next morning we arose to the peaceful river next to us. Here is a picture of Laura enjoying her morning coffee. 🙂

After a pleasant awaking we began getting ready to hit the road again. But before we get moving we wanted to give you a little review of the trip up to this point.

If we were wanting to plan a nice drive to someone, the drive through Sutton and up to Glacier View is definitely worth it. At that point we would just turn around and head back towards Palmer. Long story short- our lives did not gain much fulfillment from the experience of driving through Eureka and Glennallen. So what about the drive to Valdez? Well… you’ll just have to find out! 😉

So we were off- heading from Glennallen to Valdez! Once we hit Valdez, that would add another 120 miles to our trip- setting the shakedown total at 528.3 miles.

The drive to Valdez had a few highlights- but the majority of the cruise was long hill, mountain views, and occasionally the Alyeska Pipeline.

It was cool to get to see the pump stations way down at this end. Not even 10 years ago I was doing a fun run up on the North Slope at the origination point of the pipeline; Pump Station 1!

Eventually we were enticed to pull over as we approached a glacier access. This time the glacier was called The Worthington Glacier- and with that we had another opportunity where Laura might have a shot at finally touching a glacier!

So up to the parking area we drove, and up the path we went!

Compared to the Exit Glacier trail we walked in Seward the distance to this glacier was much shorter.

The paved paths took you down to where the glacier washout area was. After that we were walking the trail to where the mountains started to climb up towards the actual glacier.

As we went up the mountain you could tell a lot of the stone was actually smoothed down from the glacier, and a lot of it was actually petrified wood.

Eventually the trail in the rocks ended, and it appeared we were still quite far from being able to touch the glacier. I encouraged Laura to travel up just a little bit further over the heavy shale.

And that’s when we came to a small pool which sat on the backside edge of…

… the glacier! It was hard to spot at first moment that it was truly the glacier, because the ice was still heavily covered in dirt. But dirty glacier or not- this was Laura’s moment to shine.

And with that she climbed down towards the pool and reached out…

… to touch the cold mass and thus make her first successful glacial contact!

Another dream off of the bucket list!

And after lots of smiles, many sprung tears of joy, and some more glacier touching…

… she was okay with heading back down the mountain. ⛰️

And before we knew it we had returned to Earth. We returned up the walking path and back to Our Ohana. 💕

After a little bit of food, and me installing some new door gasket we had purchased in Anchorage we were back to climbing the mountain to get over to Valdez.

It was a steep climb, and on the other side a huge amount of steep downhill that we knew we would be climbing the next day. Luckily the miles of construction through the downhill were not in operation so it went as smooth as possible.

Eventually we passed the sign for Valdez!

FYI- this sign is actually quite far from Valdez. On the long way in past this there are some gorgeous waterfalls. Laura and I theorized that they wanted to claim them as part of the city of Valdez, so they put the welcome sign way out yonder from the actual town. 🤣

Awhile later we finally, and actually, reached the town of Valdez. Upon arrival we did a lap of the town and began to quickly discover there was not much going on if you were not there to go out fishing.

Right in town there was another RV park, right off the gas station where we stopped to re-fuel the RV. People were once again parked basically right on top of each other and it looked tight. Still trying to figure out how that type of camping is a fun experience… 🤔

Shortly after we went by the store to see if we wanted anything re-fuel ourselves, and after our visit I decided to finally give into an idea.

There was a member on The Toyota Motorhome Club on Facebook that had shared how he spent his summers in Valdez boon docking. I knew that Facebook page had people seeing if other Toyhome owners where in their vicinity so they could share their rigs. I went ahead and sent the gentleman a message in hopes we could maybe check out his rig, or if he knew of any sweet boon docking spots we might like to stay the night.

The town of Valdez is another port town similar to Homer, but unlike Homer the coast has lots of interesting tall, smaller rocky islands with trees growing on them. There a lot of land formations like this if you travel across the bay from Homer.

Right when you enter the actual town of Valdez, there is a cute little park by the harbor that joins up to one of these islands. (So therefore this one is more like a tall & rocky peninsula with trees growing on it 😆) We decided while we awaited word from the TMC member that this would be a perfect place to go on a walk-about and see what we could see.

So right at the beginning of the trail there is a big, beautiful tree growing right where the rocks begin to steeply rise…

Behind it there is what looks like could be a footpath that climbed up the hillside.

So we looked at this option or the main path- and wanted to check out this one first.

A little further up we did find a tight but tread path, and as the elevation increased the sides of the rock face steeply dropped off into the ocean.

Just a little further along we were suddenly surround- by berries!

I hope we aren’t giving away some little hidden local secret by telling this story- but at the top of this path there were the most beautiful bushes of blueberries and salmon berries everywhere!

We followed the path to what seemed like its end, finding our hope of it going somewhere dimmed. A short bit after we heard loud crunching in the trees, and it dawned on me we could be in probable bear area. 😮

With the small island being basically right in town, we hadn’t thought to pack protection. Also we were literally standing in a berry patch- so we decided a smooth and rapid retreat would probably be best.

Once we had returned down to the main and well populated walking path we decided to give it a walk. Right after the beginning of the path my worry was confirmed, with signage explaining bear protocol and explaining it was a common traffic area for them.

So as we headed on the path we came to a fork. Left looked calm and flat, but right looked interesting. Right was sided by a fence and went steeply uphill, way steeply.

I of course, had to challenge Laura into seeing if we could run up it, and run up it we did! It was tough, and by the top our blood was flowing and we were out of breath for a moment. After a spell of slow walking we were treading along the path again.

Along the way we were surrounded by oversized plant growth, reminding me of times I had been in rainforest climates and the plants were giant versions of the ones we knew it at home.

Also along the way there were a few observation decks opening up to nice views of the water.

So upon traversing the part of the trail that covered the top of the island we began to gradually descend back down. It became quite apparent we had chosen to travel the loop backwards, with the extremely steep hill portion meaning to be the end of the loop. It appeared the very end of the island was privately owned, and therefore privately off limits. 🛑So eventually we were walking along the calm waters tucked along the back side of the peninsula, heading back to the trailhead.

When we arrived back to The Ohana, I received a message from our fellow Toyhome enthusiast, and he explained to me that he actually lives in Glennallen and spends his weekends boon docking down in Valdez. So with that, we made a plan to touch base in the morning and meet up at his place of work in Glennallen when we passed back through.

Laura and I decided there wasn’t much more to see in Valdez, and voted to get a head start on tomorrows journey by backtracking to the falls outside of town to find a place to settle down for the night.

We found a beautiful big pullover and decided it would be perfect for the evening. When we first arrived it there were a few cars, with one parked exactly in the our perfect camping spot- right by the waterfall. Luckily, by the time we walked over to look at the fall the owners of the car started getting ready to leave.

So we seized the moment and headed back to move our rig.

Once we had snuggled The Ohana up by the fall, we headed back to the other side of the pullout. Here was a cool little historic feature.

Can’t read the sign?

Hold on a second… I can help!

That’s right- this tunnel wasn’t completed due to a gun battle! 😲 Pretty cool little bit of history for ya.

We had to be careful when traveling through the tunnel, there were quite a few people also wanting to check it out so we had to carefully keep our distance to enjoy it.

As traffic opened up we were able to move our way inside.

It was disappointing to see how much trash had been left in the cave.

It was literally all firework refuse from the 4th of July the night before. 😔 Another fail for humanity… Robots – 1, Humans – 0…

The tunnel was pretty though- with water pooled at the bottom and rocks scattered throughout enough to traverse the tunnel by walking and jumping between the stones.

Also it had water drips coming from the ceiling and small streams slowly working their way down the walls. Tunnels are so cool!

Eventually as the tunnel came to where it had not been completed, the floor began to rise. The top of the tunnel had been opened up, but never fully carved out (by hand!) to be leveled out with the rest of the tunnel floor.

So we ventured our way back out of “The Gun battle Tunnel”. (Okay – the “Tunnel of 1906”) and wandered our way back towards our beloved home base.

We crossed over the bottom of the falls to a lovely little beachy area.

After checking it out for bit, we returned to settle into our little home for the night.

While we hung out in the camper, Laura had asked me to quickly doodle a coloring page for her- so to celebrate the occasion I spent a minute and doodled her a waterfall.

A little while later she had colored in a beautiful waterfall for our little home- which we immediately magnetized to the ceiling. It is still living up there today.

After drawing we set up the table and finally got to try out playing a board game in the RV!

Before we had left, a Kickstarter game had arrived in the mail called Solar Storm. It turned out to be a fun little cooperative survival game, where you tried to prevent your space ship from drifting into the sun.