We've been winding our way back to the states since we left Anchorage on Tuesday, here's a recap:
Tuesday, July 5th
2016 – Start: Anchorage,AK End:
Glennallen, AK
Finally back on the
road! We headed out toward Valdez,
stopping for the night in Glenallen, AK, the junction of the Glenn and
Richardson highways. We’ll go south on
the Richardson to get to Valdez.
The Glenn highway from
Anchorage had some fantastic views of the Matanuska Glacier from the
highway. We stopped and did a short one
mile hike to get some different perspectives and then ate lunch at one of the
rest stops with a view of the glacier.
We’re at Dry Creek State Campground, a primitive campground a couple
miles past the junction.
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| Mantanuska Glacier |
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| Mantanuska Glacier |
Wednesday, July 6,
2016 Start: Glennallen, AK End: Valdez, AK
Another beautiful drive,
although in the rain a lot of the grand views are lost. We stopped at the top of Thompson Pass to
walk out to the overlook. We’d done a little hike at Mantanuska Glacier but
they wanted $25 to go down to the glacier so we moved on to Worthington Glacier
which is in a state recreation area and we were able to walk up to the glacier. Mike found some interesting rocks (gold?) and
decided to go back on Thursday.
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| Worthington Glacier up close |
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| The view in the clouds of Thompson Peak |
After
the glacier we stopped at Bridal Falls and Horsetail Falls in Keystone
Canyon. We stayed the night in a
campground near the Valdez Glacier but that glacier is only accessible by boat. The town of Valdez wasn’t much to see but we
had some good halibut and drove out to a great view of the bay and saw some sea
lions scooping up fish from the hatchery.
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| Sea lions at hatchery in Valdez |
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| Valdez bay |
Thursday, July 7, 2016 Start: Valdez, AK End: Tosina River, AK
Today we turned toward
home! We’re going back toward Tok
and then will take the Cassiar Highway south to B.C. We left Valdez in beautiful sunshine and since
we decided to drive separately so as not to strain the RV going up Thompson
Pass, I took another look at the bay in the morning fog.
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| Valdez in the morning |
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| Dayville Road on Valdez bay |
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| Keystone Canyon |
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| 2nd visit to Worthington Glacier |
It was a short drive
through Keystone Canyon and over Thompson Pass down to Tosina River. We stayed at a campground near the turnoff to
Chitnia, the last town before the entrance to the Wrangell-St Elias National Park. We got caught up on household stuff and
Friday will head into the park.
Friday, July 8, 2016
Wrangell-St Elias National Park
We woke up early to take the 90 mile or so ride into Wrangell-St Elias National Park. We passed the Chitnia River salmon fishing areas and crossed a 14 foot wide bridge to get to the very commercialized Kennicott Mine site at the end of the highway. I couldn't capture the vastness of this glacier. The moraines stretch out at the leading edge for several square miles. They looked like piles of sand until we got closer and could see the glacier silt was covering several hundred feet of ice.
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| Kennicott Glacier (30 miles away) |
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| Moraines (glacier leftovers) of Kennicott Glacier |
There's a fee to park before the footbridge across the Chitna River and a fee for a shuttle to the town of McCarthy (pop. about 50) and on to the mine. Then, if you want to tour the buildings there's a fee for that too, We opted to hike out to get a closer look at the glacier.
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| Kennicott abandoned mines preserved as historic buildings |
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| narrow bridge to access park |
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| Kennicott Glacier |
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| fishing ladder on Chitnia River |
Not what we expected, a different version of a national park. It was a 2 mile hike to see the Kennicott glacier and its moraines up close and were back at the RV after a long day.
Saturday, July 9, 2016 Start: Tonsina Lake C.G., AK End: Lake Creek Campground, Yukon, CN
Goodbye to Alaska! It was a wonderful 30 days
in Alaska. Today we left Tonsina and
stopped in Tok to fill-up and then crossed into Canada. We spent the night at the Lake Creek
Provincial Campground, about 150 miles from Whitehorse. It was a gorgeous, sunny day, big fluffy
clouds, green everywhere and sparkles across every lake. Summer has really come to the North! We’re losing a couple minutes of sunlight
each day too. I’ll be glad to see a
night sky, though I did spot a new moon peeking out of the clouds about 6:00 pm
tonight while sitting by the fire.
Some reminisces about
Alaska:
The mailboxes jutting out
from the driveways to be above the snow in winter; electric outlets in parking
lots to plug your car into to keep the engine warm in winter; fishing and more fishing; mountains; purple, yellow, red, and white flowers, “drunk” spruce trees, frost
heaves, road construction, glacier
silted rivers, just to name a few.
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| Wrangell mountain |
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| Lake Creek campground, Yukon |
And to think, we only explored a very tiny part of this huge state! There were some t-shirts at the Farmers' Market in Anchorage that had the saying "Alaska - pissing off Texas since 1959" with the "tiny" state of Texas overlayed on the 4 times larger state of Alaska. We talked to several people who when they found out we were from Arizona said the wintered there and summered in Alaska. Maybe someday!
