June 30, 2010

Our Valdez adventures have come to a close.  We are back at the Tolsona Creek campground, a good midpoint on the way to Anchorage and a chance to recharge, refill, and empty our various systems. 

We are sensing a new paradigm.  Our pace seems right.  We aren’t leaving Valdez wishing for more and we don’t feel rushed to see what we want to see.  We have entered the world of full-time RV living and we think we are going to like it.

In spite of the cool and damp weather, we had a pleasant stay in Valdez.  I awoke yesterday and felt very relaxed.  I spent an hour or so watching and photographing the birds fly up and down the shore line.  I watched the commercial fishermen hauling in net loads of pink salmon.  I watched the sea lions get the better of them.  A group of five sea lions ducked into the net and fed on the captive fish.  The sea lions know how to take advantage.  I don’t think the fishermen minded since sea lions mean fish and they do sometimes help keep the fish captive.  Unfortunately, after most of the sea lions easily slid out over the top of the net, one young one got stuck.  He kept surfacing on the wrong side of the floats.  The fishermen had to stop winching in the net and try to help the sea lion get to the right side of the floats so it could hop out of the net.  Finally the sea lion escaped, but the long pause resulted in a rather empty net, a waste of a good hour’s worth of work.

In the afternoon, we hiked up to the Solomon Gulch Dam.  A dam was built about six hundred feet up the mountain to increase the size of an existing lake and provide for hydroelectric power.  Solomon Gulch is a salmon stream, but the gulch is so steep that the fish spawn within a hundred yards of the salt water.  The natural fish still spawn in the gulch as the dam operator is required to maintain a minimum flow through the gulch.  There is plenty of extra water to divert to the power plant.  The hike was a lot of uphill on gravel, but we were rewarded with some nice views and a relatively isolated dam to explore.  The lake was large, but appeared lifeless, no birds, no fish.  It seemed a little unnatural with the concrete of the dam in such a beautiful alpine setting, but we must balance our needs against our impacts and this one seemed like a good compromise.

By dinner time, things had definitely changed in the area.  The fishing success had improved that afternoon with our camping neighbors reporting good catches.  All these fish being caught meant all these fish were being cleaned, the carcasses tossed back into the water.  The dropping tide was exposing these delectable morsels.  The birds were stirred up.  Seagulls were screeching, scrambling, and fighting for little bits of fish.  The crows were sneaky, finding pieces in the tight spots in the rocks that other birds couldn’t get in.  The eagles were in charge.  If they saw something they wanted, they took it. 

I saw a group of seagulls scrambling over a piece of fish.  The lead seagull flew away with dozens of seagulls following.  Suddenly, an eagle appeared, almost from nowhere, and swooped under the lead seagull.  The swarm of seagulls parted in his path.  The lead seagull apparently knew the gig was up and dropped the piece into the water.  The eagle snatched it up and flew away, with a few birds following in hopes of some bits falling off.

All this action put me into a quandary.  I was trying to grill some sausage for our spaghetti dinner.  I didn’t expect to tend the grill through this entire process, but a crow almost snuck up on me while I merely had my back turned for seconds.  Kris had to cook the noodles, a task I would normally handle, while I played scarecrow.  Kris even had to come play scarecrow for awhile since I had planned to put the generator away while cooking dinner.  The crows would land right on top of the trailer and look down at my food.  The night before, I had placed my salmon on the grill and walked away a few times.  No birds had bothered that so clearly things had changed in just a day.

Along with the fish arriving in full force, the fishermen arrived.  What was a mostly empty campground for several nights, was now full.  Our timing couldn’t have been more perfect.  We were getting ready to leave right when the crowds were arriving.  We had three peaceful evenings and I caught exactly the salmon we wanted, just one.  We were early for the season, so it was fishing, not just catching.  And the fish was still fresh, not those deformed rotting critters that we saw clogging this water a few years back with my parents.

I tried to catch another pink salmon in the evening, but it was the wrong tide.  The best fishing is on the incoming tide, but I wanted to hike in the afternoon rather than fish.  It was simply a matter of priorities.  We would have been happy to put one pink salmon in the freezer for next week’s fish dinners, although we doubt it would be as good as the fresh one.  We ate the other half of the first pink this evening for dinner and it was still excellent.  I think I have finally figured out how to cook salmon without overcooking it.  I could not detect the least bit of that distinctive salmon flavor that I detest in either of these meals.