David Tingey Hatch: Familiarization trips rock!

Familiarization trips rock!

So lately, we have just been getting paid to drive around in a bus and see the sights. Oh and learn all the logistics, turns, and tour material.

Wednesday

We kicked off our adventure by going to the El Dorado Gold Mine. At the gold mine, the tourists get a little train ride into the permafrost cave that is frosted over all year long. Then they get a sluice box mining demonstration. Then they turn the old folks loose in the gold panning troughs to mine for their own gold. They give them a bag of dirt and guarantee the guests that they can find at least eight flakes of gold and if not they can get another bag of dirt. The dirt they give them naturally has gold in it but they always spice it up a little just to make the guests happy.

After the El Dorado Gold mine we, Copper River guides headed out to the Copper River. Because the Denali highway is still closed, we had to come down the Richardson highway, which is not the way we would normally come with guests. We bordered the Tanana River, then passed through the Rainbow Mountains in the Alaska Mountain range and followed the Alaska Pipeline until we reached the Copper River where we spent the night.

Thursday

The Copper River is so named for the Kennecott Copper Mines near by. There are all kinds of fun things to see in at the Copper River area but we headed down to the port of Valdez the next morning to see where the Alaska Pipeline came into the port and where it fills up the oil tankers. To get to Valdez we went through the Thompson pass in the Chugach Mountain Range, we passed the Worthington Glacier and saw Bridal Veil Falls, and the Horsetail Waterfall. While in Valdez, we saw a bunch of bald eagles; a guy was feeding them fish and they were swooping down and grabbing them and flying off with them. I’m not too sure of the legality of what he was doing but it was supper cool and I got a bunch of pictures.

Friday

That same day we headed back to the Copper River lodge to spend the night again and the next morning we headed off to Kenai. We drove across the Glenn highway paralleling the Chugach mountain range to Anchorage and then we drove through town to get a good idea of what we were supposed to do in Anchorage for the day with our guests.

On the way to Anchorage on the Glenn highway, we passed through Palmer. Palmer is a quaint little town that has rather good weather and looks like Utah. It has up scale houses and a bunch of white people. Palmer was started when the government promised 102 families passage to Alaska, and farms, houses and barns when they got there. When they arrived, there were no such houses or barns and about half of the families turned around and headed for home. The other stuck it out and created the little village of Palmer. In Palmer, the world records for carrots, cabbage, and pumpkins are held. The vegetables grow so well because of the long days of photosynthesis, temperate weather, and rich soil from the glacial silt.

After Anchorage, we drove down the Seward highway to Whittier where the cruise ships are and where we drop off our guests. To get to Whittier we had to go through a single lane tunnel that goes right through the heart of a mountain to get to the bay on the other side where the cruise ships dock. I got the chance to drive through the Whittier tunnel. The tunnel is long and straight and from the moment you enter you can see the light at the other end so of course every time we got through the tunnel the tour director on board or us will make a real cheesy joke about going to the light at the end of the tunnel.

After coming back out of the Whittier tunnel, we continued down the Seward highway on the Kenai Peninsula. The road we traveled down is located in a huge U shaped valley that had been carved out of the mountains by a glacier ten thousand years ago. The Kenai Peninsula is supper beautiful. The spruce trees are much larger, everything is greener, and there are tons of glaciers in the mountains on ether side of the road. After some time driving, we arrived at the Kenai Princess lodge, which is just absolutely beautiful, and the rooms they give us are large and spacious. Of course, these rooms are just for the guests during the season and we will be living in the driver’s housing but they are letting us chill the night in the nice hotel rooms since the season hasn’t started yet.

Tomorrow we will be driving back through Anchorage and all the way up the Parks highway to Denali and grab the train from Denali to Fairbanks so we can get the experience that the guests will be getting on their cruise.

During the trip, we were each assigned topics to talk about for ten minutes minimum. I was assigned Salmon, fishing laws, clear vs. silt water, fish farms, hatcheries, cost recovery fishing, streams and rivers, dip net fishing, native vs. non-native fishing and hunting laws, commercial fishing vessels, and types and cycles of Salmon. I did great researching my topics and talking about them. I ended up going on for a half hour on my subjects, it was great practice, and I have tons more material to learn.

On our trip, so far we have seen moose, caribou, lynx, snow shoe hairs, dale sheep, bald eagles, and all kinds of vegetation and birds. Animal sightings have been good and the days have been supper clear so we had all the visibility we needed to see the distant mountains and glaciers.