Sally and I took a kayak trip out of Valdez to the Shoupe glacier. We were taken with a Scottish couple about 20 miles north of Valdez to the glacier area where we had to paddle through a large lower bay, through a connecting channel and into the upper bay where the glacier was. On the lower bay was one park service cabin and on the upper two cabins. These may be rented by anyone and normally a boat is chartered to take you and your gear into them.
The tidal swing was about 14 feet and the upper bay gets so much snow and glacier melt that its water level is higher than the lower bay at all times except high tide. Our trip was timed to paddle in at high tide and out at 6 pm at low tide. When we went out, there was a good current and we cruised rapidly out of the upper bay with the ice and snow melt water and through the channel through which was a class one rapids. We bounced off of a few rocks and the rudder kicked up but we made it through with a nice ride and no problems. There was actually a big island between the two bays and there was a channel on both sides. The water temperature was about 34 degrees because of the ice melt. We could not have paddled up to the upper bay after high tide. There was too much of a current and water level drop. The rocks were also quite large in the water and covered with a very slippery sea weed. I do not think a canoe could be lined up (pulled up) to the upper bay when we went out other than by a real expert and it would be very trecherous. Lining allows either one person in the water to bring the canoe upstream or two people from shore with ropes to pull it up. We finally paddled to the spot where our boat was going to pick us up. It arrived, we loaded, and we headed back to Valdez.
After about a minute we noticed a canoe with two people in it. Our captain said he needed to talk to them. He had dropped them off the day before. They were staying in one of the two cabins in the upper bay. It was 6:45pm. Low tide was at 8 pm and he said they had a BABY in the canoe. We pulled up and sure enough there was a 5 or 6 months old baby sleeping in a little carrier on the floor of the canoe. The man said they were planning on paddling into the upper bay at 8pm, low tide. Our captain explained to them about the water flow and said they would not be able to and that they would be waiting until the next day. They had no extra gear with them for an overnight out, just a fish pole and tackle. Once the guy realized he had a bad plan he did not say anything, and the woman just smiled. The captain said that they should be able to leave their canoe and hike around, though thinking about it now, there were plenty of places on the shore you could not walk because it was cliff to the water. The captain warned them to leave the canoe well up on the shore as the tide would take it away otherwise. We motored off and they paddled off. What is the rest of the story???
Bill
P.S. from Sally: We didn't read about any disasters in the news up here so we assume they made it out okay.
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