Our stay in Valdez started with a beer then a barbeque, it was a beautifully calm evening with a clear sky - it is actually getting dark at night now though. We couldn't find a full day hike that interested us but we had a few things that might fill the day. It was supposed to be dry until the evening but showers started early. Quick stop at the USFS office to see if they had more hiking info than we had already acquired. The office is right by a small creek and it was full of salmon spawning. You could get so close you could reach in and just grab one (if you wanted a hefty fine that is). A guy was set up with his camera and tripod hoping a bear would come to the creek to fish (one came yesterday). We drove around to the other side of the bay to see vehicles pulled up at the roadside. We soon found out there was a black bear helping himself to the fish in a creek. It was only a cub say one or two years old but you never know when mother will appear. The area was already littered with dead fish which the seagulls were feasting on. Bertie the bear would just pull one out with his paw and after a bite discard it and go for another. They just eat the eggs, sperm sack, brains or the fatty bits, the rest they aren't interested in (or so we were told). Fish that he had finished with were flapping around on the bank, some managed to slide back in the creek missing a few bits! A bit further along the road we stopped at a salmon hatchery. It was right next to a creek flowing into Valdez bay. The water was alive with thousands of fish trying to or waiting to get upstream. The hatchery control entry to the creek with a gate and the salmon then have to use a fish ladder which takes them to a building where they are cut open, eggs or milk extracted and the fish sold at market. This may seem wrong as the salmon should naturally fight their way upstream to spawn. The hatchery in fact allow so many salmon up river then divert the rest up their fish ladder. They cultivate the eggs and rear new salmon. They harvest 14 million salmon a year, a portion are sold to pay for their running costs (they are non-profit making) and the rest are released into the sea, thus safeguarding the salmon population. Many of the salmon they take eggs from would in fact have not made it up river to spawn. Shoals of fish rapidly move away from the estuary as underneath them are seals and sea otters coming for easy picking. Suddenly a grey head would emerge with a tasty fish lunch hanging out of its mouth. They have actually had a seal in the fish ladder, goodness knows how they got him out. Finally, we put our boots on, after just 10 minutes uphill we saw very fresh bear scat on the trail then met 4 Italians looking up the hillside, there was a black bear up there, not all that far away. I saw the foliage move but Donna saw the bear. The Italians went back we went on but making lots of noise and clutching our bear spray and a bear banger instead of them being in a rucksack pocket. The rain came down on and off, we reached the overlook for views over the bay, we continued up Solomon Gulch to Solomon lake. The big peaks including Sugarloaf mountain were enveloped in cloud. We returned back to Tilly with no bear encounters, but driving back down the road there was a bear suddenly running alongside us just feet away! He disappeared into a ditch and refused to come out for his photo to be taken. We visited Valdez old town. Back in 1964 on Good Friday, Valdez experienced an earth quake of 9.2 magnitude, the highest ever recorded in north America. Most of Valdez was devastated with a resulting Tsunami, the town was declared unsafe and a New Valdez built a few miles along the bay. Back in new Valdez we walked up the overlook trail which is really short but gives good views over the town, then we went to see what the fisherman were bringing in. Three guys had just returned after a 3-day fishing trip in Prince William Sound and were hanging their catch up to photograph. Halibut weighing 50 pounds each, which look huge but are small when you consider they can go up to 350 pounds. Lots of Salmon, Chum and some ugly Rockfish. Valdez is another fishing mecca, so much so that even the RV sites have gutting tables and a fish freezer. People fly here to fish and have their catches frozen and flown back home! The people coming here to fish far outweigh the tourists. We lost count of how many pickups were parked up with empty boat trailers, their owners being somewhere out there on the water. There were plenty of folk barbequing some of their catch, we had chili and rice!