June 12-13, 2024 - Road Trip, Bridges, Hatchery and Cemetery

Wednesday, June 12th, was a hang out day, finish up the laundry and shopping.  Thursday, June 13th, was a road trip day.

We went back to some of our pictures from 2007 and had to go back to Keystone Canyon to check it out.  From the 2007 pictures, it looked like the river bed was more shallow.  Turns out it is the same - once I took the latest picture from the same viewpoint.

This is in 2007:

This is 2024:

August 2007:

June 8th, 2024:

June 13th, 2024 - running stronger today:

After passing this bridge a few times, we decided to find it and see if we could cross to the other side:

Well, we found it!  But could not cross - Bummer.  

I did get out and walk across.  Funny thing was that when I got closer to the other side, I could hear loud music - like a radio.  So decided to head back to the truck.

Downriver:

Upriver:

From there we made our way to Dayville Road and the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery.

https://www.valdezfisheries.org/the-hatchery/

https://www.valdezalaska.org/discover/around-town/fish-hatchery/

"VFDA built the Solomon Gulch Hatchery (SGH) in 1981, and released its first pink salmon fry in 1982. It has operated consistently since then. The water for the hatchery is provided by the Solomon Gulch Hydroelectric Plant, owned by the Copper Valley Electric Association through a cooperative agreement.

VFDA employs a hatchery crew of twelve full and part-time employees, and is directed by Hatchery Manager Rob Unger. Other staff includes an assistant manager, fish culturists, maintenance support staff, and night watchmen. The hatchery staff lives in the Valdez community.

SGH has a permitted green egg capacity to incubate 270 million pink salmon and 2 million coho salmon each year. These egg capacities are strictly controlled by the State of Alaska. With this capacity, VFDA achieves annual releases of approximately 250 million pink salmon fry, and 1.8 million coho salmon smolt.

Egg take or spawning happens in late summer. Hatchery staff may spawn as many as 16,000 adult brood stock each day. These fish return to the hatchery spawning building by entering the facility using a fish ladder, which carry the fish from salt water to raceways on shore. Over the winter, the hatchery staff tends to the eggs as they hatch into alevin and settle into simulated gravel to subsist from their yolk sacs. In early spring, the fry emerge and are ready to go to sea. VFDA pumps the fry to net pens off shore where they are fed using commercial salmon feeds until they reach a target weight of at least 0.5 grams. From there, the smolts are released to complete their life cycle in the open sea. This process is known as ocean ranching. The adults, which average about 3.5 pounds each, return the following summer, and the process starts all over again.

Average adult returns to the hatchery are approximately 15.8 million adult pink, and 83,000 coho salmon. After harvesting a small percentage of the return for cost recovery and brood stock, the remainder is harvested primarily by the commercial purse seine fishermen."

There is a self-guided walking tour so that is what we did.  The salmon are not running now so no fish and no bears.  It was still interesting!

First sign at the parking lot:

So now that we are fully prepared, we continued our tour:

The weir is currently down:

The tide is out:

The other side of the weir:

Now THAT is a lot of fish!:

The fish ladder:

The outdoor pens:

Very interesting even without the fish and bears!

The tide was starting to come in:

Solomon Gulch Creek:

Lots of water and lots of nesting birds:

Our last stop of the day was the Valdez Memorial Cemetery:

This bear is beautiful!

Unknown Folks:

 

What a great road trip day!

Here is our site:

We were able to book a ride on the ferry from Valdez to Whittier on Saturday. Unfortunately, the RV park does not have an opening for Friday night so we will be moving tomorrow.

This was a great little place to call home for over a week!

Short move tomorrow so stay tuned and enjoy today.