Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
evening trip, especially by Cathy and Bob's son, Mike, who takes every opportunity to
take off in every possible direction. “Don't be bear bait, Mike!” she calls after him as he
disappears up a trail. “Uh, you might change your mind about that after a while,” says
Bob, Mike's loving father.
Robin Irving and and her husband, Mark, came to Cordova seventeen years ago, when
Mark was a gillnetter on the Copper River flats. He decided that Cordova needed more re-
creational opportunities, and in 1995 sold his boat and permit and went into the river raft-
ing business. They operate exclusively on the Copper River Delta, offering three-day
floats from Tasnuna, five-day floats from Chitina, and ten-day floats from McCarthy,
along with day adventures out of Cordova that combine flight-seeing and/or hiking with
rafting.
Their prime customers have been what Robin refers to as
VFR
s (Visiting Friends and
Relatives) and people off the small cruise ships that stop in Cordova during the summer,
but they have begun to see an increase in independent travelers who decide to make Cor-
dova a destination. “Cordova is at the end of the road,” Robin says, “off the beaten path.
We feel like we get the cream of the crop in customers. Seeing Alaska through their eyes
brings back that awe and wonder we felt when we saw Alaska for the first time.”
To get to the rafts we get to hike what Robin calls “Class 5 land rapids” while she tells
us what we're looking at. It's pretty impressive.
Sheridan Glacier is one of five area glaciers named for Union generals (Sheridan, Sher-
man, Scott, Childs and Miles) by two career Army lieutenants on a post-Civil War survey
trip who were probably thinking it might be a good career move. Sheridan is a wide rib-
bon of ice winding out of the Chugach Mountains, white higher up, blue lower down.
Sherman Glacier's lower reaches are black, and Robin explains that this is from the 9.2
earthquake in 1964, which caused a nearby mountain to shatter and fall onto the glacier in
a three-foot blanket of debris. It's overcast, with wisps of mist curling around the bases of
the glaciers and the surrounding mountains like smoke. Robin points out moose tracks,
one big, one little, one Nike, in a patch of mud on the trail. Later on, our boatman wants to
know if we saw the black bear tracks in the same patch. Nope.
Robin talks about the process that the land goes through as the glacier recedes, begin-
ning with mosses and lichens breaking down the rocks to form soil. Then the grasses and
