A spectacular trip to Valdez

Recorded 6-30-09

We spent the next three days get to Valdez but I think it will have been one of the highlights of our trip. Getting to Valdez had its surprises along the way.

As we retraced our path to Anchorage, this time we stopped at the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center which was rained out when we passed going the other way. Today Friday the 26th of June we have gorgeous weather so far. We find as we move a hundred miles or so in any direction we seem to pass into a whole new weather pattern.

The conservation center was fine. Most of the animals we have already seen in the wild, bear, elk, moose, buffalo, fox, caribou. But we had not seen a musk ox. So that was a treat. Musk ox fur, as we learned way back at the Banff Springs Hotel, Alberta is the warmest and lightest weight of all. Even cashmere can not match it as it is judged to be 8 times warmer then wool. They do not sheer it they just comb the animal and gather it as the animal sheds. We saw the most amazing (and most expensive) scarves & sweaters of musk ox at the Banff Springs Hotel.

Getting back on the road again. Now we are off to our next side trip, Portage Glacier. Portage Glacier is on the way to Whittier which is where a lot of Anchorage cruise ships dock to deliver their passengers to Anchorage. This is also true so Seward because the port at Anchorage is too shallow for the large cruise liners. We are on about our 4th or 5th glacier so we are not up for expensive land tours. We took our pictures and moved on.

We stopped for the night in Girdwood at the Alayeska Resort about 40 miles short of Anchorage. You can dry camp in the ski lift parking area for $10. So we spent our first night of dry camping. Not being a skier myself, I had not heard of Mount Alayeska and this resort. It is a world class ski resort and is working into the “Aspen” & “Telluride” international resort class. We ate dinner at the Two Musk Inn a top 10 rated restaurant according to Linda, my personal tour guide and source of a lot of the facts I have not gleaned on my own.

Up and out Saturday, through Anchorage after fueling and we are out the Glenn Highway toward Palmer. Palmer and the valley surrounding it is the area of Alaska known for the giant prize winning vegetables. It was a gorgeous lush valley. With the near 24 hour sun in summer they boast several hundred pound pumpkin & cabbage as big as a beach ball.

We spent the night in Glennellen (no great shakes) and made the turn south to Valdez a little over 100 miles away in the morning of the 29th. On our way we made a most awesome discovery a few miles down the Richardson Highway #4, Wrangell- St. Elias National Park. Our visit at the visitor’s center with a resident of the park clued us in on what an amazing and overlooked place we had come upon. He said that it is new; established in 1980, huge; the biggest of all the national parks, self navigating; unlike Denali, you do not need to get on a bus to see it and feeless; there is no gate or pass to buy. We thought about trying to visit the park but time was not on our side. This was a Denali sized event and would take some planning. It turns out that we return to Wrangell after Valdez because so many people we asked told us not to miss it. More later on Wrangell.

As we continue down the Richardson Highway we next stop at the Worthington Glacier. Here we had a glacier that was kind enough to be visible from a distance down the road, had no fee, great walking paths pus we saw people hiking all the way to the top of it. We really enjoyed visiting Worthington Glacier now that we have been to so many.

It is Sunday June 28th and excitement came in the last 40 miles. We were told the highway to Valdez was like the Switzerland of Alaska but you really have to see it to appreciate the mountain formations that you pass. They are truly breathtaking. It included a ridge line with snow and peaks that are so cragy and unusual yet symmetric that in a way they look unreal. Words really can’t describe coming around this one little hill to reveal the long expanse of this range.

A little further along we found ourselves tracing the Alaskan pipeline. It starts clear up in Prudhoe Bay at the top of Alaska and ends here where the crud boards tankers. We dropped down toward the Port of Valdez, both finding our destination.