Cordova

Beautiful downtown Cordova - pride of the Copper River Delta. Population 2240.



This is why we came to Alaska - for scenes like this one. Sheridan Glacier as seen from the Copper River highway. It's like this for 45 miles as the road winds thru the Copper River delta. All of the glaciers are named for Civil War Generals (remember that the US bought Alaska from the Russians in 1867).




Cordova from the harbor. It's very much a fishing town, with the sounds of seagulls and the smells of the ocean permeating everything. You can just see the beginning of the town rising up the hill to the right of the photo. The Good Friday earthquake of 1964 caused the land here to rise 6.5 feet in a matter of a few minutes. This was one of the fishing villages dramatically impacted by the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. Apparently there's still litigation ongoing as a result of the impact it had on the livelihoods of the locals who live on and around Prince William Sound.




One of several Muskrat lodges we saw in the wetlands along the road. Saw several Beaver lodges too.




Childs Glacier at the end of the road.

The Copper River Highway (unpaved) goes for about 45 miles east of Cordova and follows the right of way of the old Copper Valley railroad, built around 1906 to haul copper ore from the rich mines of Kennicott in the interior to the port at Cordova. Both the copper and the railroad are long gone, and the road essentially ends at a local landmark call the Million Dollar Bridge. Child's Glacier is located right across the river from a State campground near the bridge. The face of that wall of ice is about 100 ft. high and it's calving all the time. Saw several fairly large sections collapse into the river just in the time we were there. Once or twice a year a really big section gives way and sends a mini-tsunami up and over the bank on the other side, at which time your only hope is to run like hell for higher ground. It's constantly groaning and cracking too, and there's nothing subtle about it. The glacier is moving about a foot a day I'm told, and it's constantly cracking with the sound of a howitzer being fired at close range. Don't know what it must be like to try to sleep in the campground overnight.




It was a little daunting to sit in this spot having lunch just across from the face, knowing that a couple of times a year the ground I'm standing on is submerged under about 20 ft. of water. One side benefit (assuming you survive the glacial tsunami) is that the wave tosses up scores of sockeye salmon, so you can walk out on the beach and collect a very nice dinner once the water subsides. Unfortunately, the local bears are apparently aware of the mini feast and come out of the forest pretty quickly to take advantage of the free food as well. Just another day in Alaska!



This is the Million Dollar Bridge, originally built to enable the rail connection with Kennicott about 45 miles further up the valley, but now essentially a bridge to nowhere since the road peters out only a mile or two beyond this point. The far span collapsed during the '64 earthquake and was later rebuilt.




Saw lots of berries starting to ripen as we hiked around the area. The place we sat to have lunch was actually in the center of a fairly sizable field of wild strawberries, which will no doubt make it a particularly exciting place to sit in about a month when the bears come down to feast.


On the way back to Cordova we stopped for a short hike thru a meadow of Sitka Spruce, Cottonwoods and Devil's Club. The air was perfectly still and as the cottonwood seeds drifted down thru the trees it lent an otherworldly aura to the whole scene. Was like hiking thru one of the Orc Forests in New Zealand.



Stepping off at the trailhead




A little bush whacking along the way. Saw lots of moose and bear scat but no creatures, probably because Rita was wearing about a dozen bear bells and was making enough noise for an entire circus. My guess is that she probably scared the scat out of the fleeing varmints with all the racket.




The end point of the hike was this pretty mountain lake at the foot of still another small glacier. Unlike most of the other rivers and streams in the area this lake and the river at its outfall were crystal clear and so aquamarine blue that they almost glowed.





Our botanical education continues...this is Liverleaf Wintergreen. Lots of it in patches along the trail.




They call this plant Wood Sorrel back in Washington State, but here it's called Bunchberry or Dwarf Dogwood. In some places it literally carpets the floor of the forest.




It's a pleasure to just drive around the area. Reminds us of New Zealand in that beautiful vistas seem to open up around every bend in the road.




Have even seen several Ptarmigan with chicks. This Mama bird escorted us along the trail for about 30 yards until we were far away from the fat little babies. In the winter their feathers molt to pure white as camouflage from predators.


Lots and lots of berries in the forest and along the trails. Wanted to stop and collect some of these wild blueberries but the mosquitoes made any stop a life threatening act, so we had to pass them by.

We're here for a couple more days before jumping back aboard the ferry for the short trip to Valdez.