ROF= Ring of fire Odyssey MEF-H = Marine Expeditionary Force- Hargus
AK= ALaska journey
Monday August 7, 2017
To Valdez.
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The night before we camped at Dry Creek Camp, Alaska State Park.
Next morning into GlenAllen heading south on Highway 4 to Valdez
GlenAllen was a “T” of a Crossroad town Highway 1 heading west to Anchorage, Highway 4 heading south to Valdez.
Glenallen had the basics of a town, fuel stations, food store, Library - that was closed-, and several other small town business. It's still an outpost station on the way, the main ALCAN route to Anchorage.
Some 10 to 15 miles down Hwy 4 we got a side out and a really good view of Mount Wrangell Mount St Elias, Mount drum, Mount Blackburn, some 20 miles away. clear sunny skies and good visibility with no wall clouds formed in the morning for a good view.
Mount Wrangell - saint Elias is The largest national park in the United States. Mount Wrangell is 14000 feet high and has an active volcano.
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Park Superlatives:
- Largest national park in the United States.
- Largest wilderness area in the National Wilderness Preservation System.
- Designated as a World Heritage Site with Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve and the Canadian neighbors Kluane National Park Reserve and Tatshenshini-Alsek National Park. (Making this the world's largest international protected wilderness.)
- Four major mountain ranges:Wrangell, St. Elias, Chugach, and the eastern part of the Alaskan Range.
- Mt. St. Elias, at 18,008 feet, is the second highest peak in the United States.
- Nine of the 16 highest peaks in the United States.
- Mt. Wrangell, at 14,163 feet, is one of the largest active volcanoes in North America.
- The Nabesna Glacier, at approximately 80 miles, is the longest non-polar valley glacier.
- The Malaspina Glacier, larger than the state of Rhode Island, is the largest non-polar piedmont glacier in North America.
- The Hubbard Glacier is one of the largest and most active tidewater glaciers in North America.
These facts are not the end of the superlatives! Explore the park and discover others for yourself.
The drive onto Valdez had a lot of good mountain scenery Woodland forest mountains.
We stopped and fished in the Klutina river for a little while with no luck. NADA fish.
There were stretches of Road that were okay. Then there were stretches of road that were absolutely horrible with frost heaves, washboarding, washboarding sections that had a bump every 40 ft and you couldn't go faster than 30 35 miles an hour.
A few places about halfway down we saw some of the Alaska pipeline, and some pumping station facilities, and barracks for the workers that built it the pipeline.
About 60 miles on the road we come to Worthington glacier. A beautiful Glacier Mountain. There is a state park at the base of Worthington. Take some warm gear because it was getting cold just driving by this.
Then we went up a incline for a few miles and it fogged in. The warmer air from the Pacific at Valdez pushed inland and rose up at Worthington glacier and pushed into the cold glacial Mountain Air. Visibility at times was 100 ft and you creeped along at 5 to 10 miles an hour looking for the oncoming headlights, or tail lights of the vehicle in front of you.
Starting down the mountain was blueberry Lake. The fog air was thick and we broke out of the Fog some then you could see a little more visibility of a few miles.
Getting down to the bottom of this decline we're about 20 miles from Valdez and us now on flat bumpy road on into town.
Valdez Alaska is an amazing place. see the other Valdez blog posts here.
You never drink twice from the same stream.
Just because you wander doesn't mean you're lost.
Uncle Hargus: Last of the Independents
Have Bear,
Will Travel
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