First was the ordeal of PACKING for the trip! Good grief! We got out the door several hours after we had planned to, due to all the contingencies we had to prepare for. We weren’t sure what the weather or sleeping accommodations would be on our trip, nor what cooking or eating arrangements we would have. It was a miserable experience trying to get ourselves ready. But we FINALLY did.
We made a rest stop at the Matanuska Glacier Overlook along the Glenn Highway on our way to Copper Center, our first destination. Courtney talked us into a short hike around the Glacier View Loop. It was good to get the kinks out.
Before we climbed back in the truck I tried to pose Tallis for a glacier-backdrop photo. After many attempts and many uninterested faces, this was the best smile I could get.
Wasn’t it a beautiful place to take a rest stop?
We finally arrived in Copper Center quite late in the evening, where our friend Bonnie let us cook a pizza in her oven and connected us with a discounted room at the Princess Lodge she manages. Ah, a real bed and a comfy night’s sleep. What a luxury on a Fish Wheel trip! Thank you, Bonnie. We ate breakfast with Bonnie in the hotel restaurant the next day, and then we headed to Chitina to see what the Fish Wheel might hold for us.
We arrived just as Courtney’s two fish wheel companions, Som and Dustin, were finishing up their take. They passed the torch and Courtney started in cleaning the dozen or so fish in the basket.
While Courtney worked Tallis and I entertained ourselves by alternately watching the process, taking walks around the area, and eating lunch.
Within a few hours it was all wrapped up (what a quick Fish Wheel stop!) and we headed toward our next destination. Since Bonnie’s hotel was fully booked that night, we decided to camp at the Blueberry Lake Campground in Thompson Pass on the way to Valdez. But as we headed up the pass we found ourselves in dense, wet fog, and then discovered that the campground was closed. So much for that! We continued on our way to Valdez, but encountered lots and lots of rain, rising rivers, and basically unpleasant camping conditions. We actually looked into taking the ferry back to Whittier, but balked at the expense.
Before leaving Valdez, Courtney took us to a park pavilion and cooked up some delicious food in the cold and rain. He was a hero for our dampened ambitions, even building a fire in the barbeque pit to warm us up! (And the food was great!)
We had to travel back over Thompson Pass to get out of the coastal rain storm that night, but found ourselves a dry campsite at Squirrel Creek, long after dark. We had our first experience tent camping with Tallis, and it went marvelously! He was a great snoozer, there between us. (Thank goodness – we’d been worried!)
Rain awoke us in the morning, as the storm finished pushing itself over the mountains. Courtney got us a fire and a hot breakfast while we packed up. We stopped along the way back to pick a few blueberries and get the kinks out again, and were glad to be happily and safely back at McHugh Creek after our big adventure!
The dozen fish were used up quickly with a couple of batches of canning and a couple of hosted fish barbeques, but we didn’t have the freezer space for a big take anyway. Ah, but we’re glad to have Copper River Red Salmon to take for granted!
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