The Road to Valdez

The camp host at the Heritage RV park in Palmer had recommended the “Noisy Goose” cafe so we stopped there for breakfast as we got on the road. The service and food were good and we really enjoyed the ambiance. There were numerous signs with funny sayings. Here are a couple of my favourites:

I also got a kick out of this wooden moose in his Carhartt overalls.

The first part of the drive from Palmer on the Glenn Highway wasn’t too exciting (just winding, hilly and lots of trees), but once we turned south on the Richardson Highway, it got really pretty.

We drove by the Matanuska Glacier (stopped for pictures).

The trans-Alaska Pipeline follows the same route as this section of the Richardson Highway all the way to Valdez where the oil is loaded onto tankers and shipped south. We caught a few glimpses of the pipeline along the road. It’s above ground most of the way due to the permafrost. And it’s elevated about 12 feet so it doesn’t bother the wildlife.

There was lots of fireweed in the ditches. We made a pit stop along this river and I took a quick picture of the wildflowers and another nice one of the cairns.

There are lots of glaciers in this area. The Worthington glacier is really close to the road and you can walk to it. My feet haven’t recovered from the last glacier hike and it was raining so we just snapped some pictures and carried on.

When we went through Thompson Pass (elev. 2,678), we were surprised to see snow beside the road. It was a fairly steep downhill drive into Valdez from there.

Toward the bottom, we drove through the stunning Keystone Canyon.

One last stop on the road was to take pictures of the beautiful Bridal Veil Falls.

Until 1964, Valdez was located about 4 miles east of its present location. After the 1964 Earthquake, the decision was made to relocate the heavily damaged town to an area that was more stable. So, there are no ‘old’ buildings in Valdez.

Valdez is surrounded by hills, mountains, glaciers and ocean. The hills are really green with lots of small waterfalls, and rugged peaks. The glaciers are sparkling white in the distance. It is truly beautiful. I can see where they got the saying “Who says Mother Nature doesn’t play favourites.”

We checked into the Bear Paw RV Park which is right on the Valdez small boat harbour. They only had one spot left when we got here so it’s a good thing we didn’t spend any more time sight-seeing along the way! There are two caravans here which has taken most of the spots. Fran is happy as they have cable TV hook-ups! We haven’t been able to use our satellite dish all trip. There are too many obstructions and even if we had a clear spot, the satellite would be really hard to find.

The sky had cleared and it was nice and warm by the time we got settled in our site. We went to the Harbor Café for supper then road our bikes around and explored the town.

Valdez is flat and small enough to get around easily on bikes.

I'll put some pictures from around town in tomorrow's blog.