The Valley of 10,000 Smokes: Novoerupta

In New Zealand, it’s the shortest day. Hooray, we’re missing the dark winter. Here, it’s the longest day. Except, I’ve realised that in 24 hour day light there isn’t really a longest day. It’s only a thing when you have decreasing darkness and we haven’t had darkness since southeast Alaska, and that was brief.

After breakfast, we walked to the far side of the bridge and got the bus for our day trip to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. We set off at 9am along the single track road. We stopped at a couple of view points along the way.

As we rounded one corner there was a Lynx in the road I had a good but short sight of it but no time for a photo. It had a short stubby tail and was a similar colour to the bush around. It was smaller than I expected but bigger thanks a house cat.

We also saw snowshoe hare, a moose and some spruce grouse.

Around 11.30 we reached the visitor centre at the top of the valley and had some lunch, sandwiches and crisps. We then set of on our tramp to the bottom of the valley, about a mile and a half/ 2 miles down. In the bottom we got a good impression of the size of the pyroclastic flow caused by the enormous eruption.

After spending a little time at the bottom, we began the tramp back up. Once back in the visitor centre we dried off and had a sandwich.

We then hopped back on the bus for the return journey to Brooks Camp. On the walk back from the bus to the campground we saw a porcupine up a tree! After a change of foot wear (shoes and socks soaking wet after the walk to the valley) we went to the lodge. We had a beer in the bar and then had dinner in the restaurant.

After dinner we spent some time on the bridge watching the birds and had one last look at the porcupine before bed.Read more