THE ALASKAN ADVENTURE Day 47 July 2, 2009 Lake Lousie to Valdez, AK

What a day! The drive from the Glenn Highway down the Richardson Highway into Valdez was awesome. It was just one vista, one view, one WOW after another.

It started with us paralleling but not entering the Wrangell-St.Elias National Park.

The park is the largest National Park in the US and is referred to as the "mountain kingdom of North America" as the Chugach, The Alaska and Wrangell-St.Elias ranges converge here. This spectacular wilderness includes the continent's largest assemblage of glaciers, and the greatest collection of peaks above 16,000 feet, including Mount St. Elias (18,008'), the second highest peak in the United States.

Blackburn, Sanford, Drum and Wrangell are four mountains that can be see from the road quite clearly with Drum being the smallest at 12,010 feet. However as it is the closest it looks larger than the other three and in fact is was two thousand feet higher before it erupted and blew it's top off. It is extinct as the eruption was about 250,000 year ago. Mount Wrangell is still active and on a clear day you can see the smoke mixing with the clouds.






Mount Drum

Mount Wrangell - the cloud looking mass above the mountain is the smoke from the Volcano.

We continued along the Glenn Highway and I kept our speed quite low for two reasons. 1) You can't see anything if you are not going slow and 2) the road was the worst we have come across in Alaska or the Yukon. It was full of heaves and you had to be very alert or you just might catch some air. The views were stunning and we stopped as often as we could to take pictures.














































































The next stop was the Worthington Glacier and like most of Alaska’s glaciers, this valley glacier has been steadily retreating for the last 150 years, but not as dramatic as many others. The upper basin sits at 5,500 feet and collects about 28 feet of snow each year. You can drive to within a mile of the glacier and hike in the rest of the way. We only went a short way as we were not properly dressed for the change in temperature as you get closer. We took a bunch of pictures and headed on down the road.













































Melted Glacial water from
Worthington Glacier






A short drive down the road is Thompson Pass.















At the top of Thompson Pass is Blueberry Hill, aptly named for the blueberries that grow there in the summer. Summer is going to be on a Sunday this year. The view from Blueberry Hill is quite spectacular and this is another occasion where I would to have the photography experience and equipment to truly capture what we see.
























































The one aspect of Thompson Pass that truly amazed me was the amount of snowfall it gets each year. During the winter months it can receive as much as 90 feet of snow with 75 feet being about the average. I just can't imagine it.







Start of the Pass







The pass weaves it way down between the two mountains and the 2678 foot drop happens quickly. The views are phenomenal.

The white strip between the two mountains is not snow. It is a large bank of clouds. Awesome.

As we hit the bottom of Thompson Pass we go right into Keystone Canyon.

Keystone Canyon is three miles long and in that three miles there are three waterfalls.

Bridleveil Falls

Horse Tail Falls

When we came out of the Canyon we weren't far out of Valdez so we continued into town, gassed up and headed over to the RV park and set up. We did a little BBQing, sat and watched the view from the camper and then called it a night.

Another great day in retirement.