No reason to linger in Ye Olde Tok River Campground, so we pulled stakes and hit the road for Valdez. My job planning is officially done. I got us here, so I’m leaving the rest of the fun to Dave.
Only to learn that he hasn’t planned any fun.
He planned two fishing trips near the end of our stay here. And that’s the extent of it. he doesn’t have a “must do” check list, or online resources downloaded. The guy has done nothing.
Except drive.
And driving is valuable. So… I’ve decided to cut him some slack.
We made a mandatory stop in the town of Tok — coined “Main Street” of the Alaska Highway because you are FORCED to drive through it both coming and going from Alaska. They had a great grocery store, so I picked up some stuff. We filled the water tank. We ran the generator to bring the batteries up to 70%. And we paid $3 to hose down the car and camper. We were PRODUCTIVE!
So now, I’m in the passenger seat again, googling. Dave did find a spot to camp near Valdez before we left Tok that looked good but you needed to reserve a site online — get this — SEVEN DAYS in advance!! There was a phone number you could call and this is what we learned:
The sisters that manage the campground will only guarantee your site if you book it online at least 7 days in advance. You are still allowed to MAKE an online reservation inside of 7 days but they have all kinds of disclaimers on the site saying they won’t guarantee it. Why? Because someone (like us) can drive to the campground and claim an unoccupied site. How do you know if it’s open? By consulting the laminated sign at each individual camp site showing a list of all the confirmed reservations. The list looks like this:
Site 11:
23 + 24 Alice
27 Dawn
8/1-2 Frederick
So if someone (like us) pulls in to site 11 and wants to stay on 7/25 and 7/26, we can stay there. We pay at the campground kiosk and we are good to go. We are now the rightful owners of that site for the next two nights. But WOE IS YOU if someone made an ONLINE reservation a few days ago for site 11, thought they were good to go, and showed up to camp there, right?
I’m not sure if any of that even makes sense, but we are still marveling at/laughing about the whole thing. I’m kicking myself for not taking a picture of the sign. Never seen anything like it.
After we set up camp, we visited nearby Worthington Glacier. (You had to pay $5 to park to go walk up and see the glacier, which I found odd, but odder was that Tammy, one of the campground sisters(!), met each car as they parked, wearing a little apron to hold all her money and make change. We talked to her about the site we had just selected and payed for and she said something like “…That’s fine, he made a reservation inside of 7 days and we just don’t guarantee that, so that’s just too bad for him.”
???
Dave and I tried to figure out how we would defend ourselves and our site should “He” show up, but “He” never did. So maybe she was just talking HYPOTHETICALLY? Again. Just a crazy weird system.
We hiked around the glacier and a nearby overlook and it was absolutely stunning.
We also drove the 25 miles into Valdez to check it out. The whole area is beyond beautiful. People we talked to told us it is rare to see across the bay and up to the mountains. Which is really too bad — to think you’d be here and NOT be able to see it is so sad! We felt really fortunate to be able to experience it.
We drove to the far side of the bay to see the hatchery. The pink salmon (Humpies) are running right now and it was crazy to see. We CLEARLY did not do enough research about salmon fishing and are learning quite a bit. And it’s shocking – at least to me. I thought you “fished” for salmon. But, as far as I am understanding, in most cases you don’t. You basically try to nab a “soon-to-be dying fish.”
In the case of these pink salmon, which you could see in the water by the thousands, people lined the shore fishing for them with simple hooks by “snagging” them. It’s actually a thing. We’ve all snagged a fish by accident, but this is done on purpose. You cast your line out and reel in through these huge clusters of fish and snag one. Then reel it in.
It feels super gross to me.
We are hearing you can fish the same for way Reds (Sockeye) on Kenai — only “snagging” isn’t legal in the rivers. Instead, you FLOSS them. It’s too complicated to try to describe, but basically, you purposely try to get your line to go through the open mouth of a salmon and, if you do it right, the hook at the end of your line lodges in its mouth — which is legal.
Again, gross.
I’ve done a fair bit of googling on this subject since, and I’m still totally confused. Sockeye, in particular, rarely bite on a lure. They eat mostly plankton and crustaceans. But people do fish for them with complicated rigs baited with bright shrimp. And they do seem to bite those. How hard all this is to do, I don’t have a clue. It seems really overwhelming to figure out, so I’m really looking forward to fishing with a guide and mining him for info. Right now, it’s all a mystery.
Anyway, we learned all this from two guys we met who were snag fishing in Valdez Bay. We started talking to them and learned they are actually avid fly fishermen — which seems exceedingly rare in Alaska. They were fully cognizant of the fact snagging and flossing isn’t actually fly fishing. But, they said that’s what the “everyman” does to catch salmon if you want to eat it or take it home.
Reds (Sockeye) are now actively running and they are considered the second best tasting salmon, so I hope we are able to get some — even if we just buy it somewhere. And hopefully we have the opportunity to fish for Silver Salmon — as that type of salmon behaves more like an actual fish and will bite a lure — but that would be near the end of our trip because they don’t start running until mid August.
All probably tmi for you non-fishing people but there you have it.
Just up from where people were fishing is the Humpie (Pink Salmon) hatchery. All these fish are here in this bay because they are returning to where they were born (at the hatchery). Most of this variety are collected and used for the canned salmon you buy in the store, as well as for local’s sustenance fishing. At the hatchery there are tons of sea lions just gorging on the fish. And they are HUGE! They are so much bigger than I realized! I can’t upload the video because I don’t have enough signal, but I’ll try to put it on instagram. This is a lame picture:
We didn’t get back to camp until close to 8:30. I made tacos (!!) Anyone who knows me knows that is my favorite food. These weren’t “full on” tacos — for that I’d need soft shell corn and green La Victoria taco sauce, but they were still plenty good.
It was getting cold and we crawled in. A blissfully quiet site after that nightmare on the highway the night before.