Alaska 2024: Roll 16 - Driving to Valdez
Our trip out of the McCarthy area was a rainy wet one. We bumped down the gravel road and passed an overturned truck and RV off the side of the road (nobody was inside). It was gloomy and from what we had been seeing on the weather, we were in for a gloomy day.
I decided that Kodak Tri-X 400 shot at ISO 400 was the film for the day as there wasn't going to be anything very colorful that I would be able to capture.
Our first longer stop on the drive was the bridge that crosses the Copper River. This area is quite striking with the extremely wide river with people, trucks, and sometimes boats looking tiny in comparison.
This bridge connects everyone to the rest of the roads in the state and if it wasn't here I don't know how folks would have crossed this. The bridge was built in 1973 so it wasn't that long ago when folks were crossing another way.
Once you leave the river area you go through an old railroad cut in the mounts and then you pop out in Chitina that serves as the jumping off point for many adventurers visiting the area. You can also stop and get yourself a coffee at the espresso shack, if it is open.
Once we left Chitina it started to get very rainy and cold. Some of the stops we planned to make were just too miserable to try so we elected to give them a shot the next day.
We explored Valdez for a couple of hours while our motel room was being prepared. We stopped at the grocery store for supplies and then went out to do a bit more exploring.
One of the places I had on the map to visit was the lake that is at the base of the Valdez Glacier. It is appropriately named Valdez Glacier Lake and in the weather conditions that day it looked like a haunted place.
Most of the day I was shooting without the center filter for the Xpan. This gives me 1.5 more stops of light which can be a big difference on the shutter speeds I am able to use with the camera. The downside is that because of the wide angle of the lens, there is some light falloff on the edges of the frame. I don't think that it is too much of a problem and would find myself having to do this a few more times given the amount of light that was available.
After the lake we took a short drive to the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery. We had a great time watching the sea lions trying, and usually succeeding, to catch the fish and have some dinner. The water coming into the bay here from the river that heads through the gulch was impressing in how fast and rough it was.
It was fun to walk around the area, read the information signs, and then look over at the bay to where the sea lions were hanging out waiting for the next snack.
