The Glenn Highway, Valdez another interesting port city on Prince William Sound

To the Blog,

Link for pictures with descriptive captions

I think the last time I blogged with you, was just before leaving Palmer, in the Mat Su Valley area.  We had a good time in Palmer attending the State Fair.  You know that good things are in store when you make your plans to leave town, but you need to do three things on the way out of town.  We needed to get fuel, dump the tanks, do some emailing and post the blog.  I noticed that the Fred Meyer store had a gas station with a dump, so we headed to the station and they had a dump and a gas pump so close, that I could fill the truck while dumping the tanks.  Well guess what, the Dairy Queen next door, had a wifi hotspot so we got everything done while dumping the tanks.  Good start for the day.

The next big WOW was the excitement that the Glenn Highway (Alaska A1) offered.  Wonderful views of the valleys, mountains with high passes, glaciers,  and the river of the Matanuska River valley, then windshield fills with the Wrangell Saint Elias National Park mountains.  These are five close together mountains with peaks of 13000 ft or more.  They are big when we first saw them at mile 266 (from Anchorage) and we are still  about 50 miles away.  This is another spectacular mountain range that is straight ahead of us and Barbara and I both realized that we had completely forgotten about this National Park that our highway is taking us to.  Another adventure ahead on our Alaskan vacation.

Facts about Wrangell St Elias National Park established 1980

• Larger than 6 Yellowstones over 13.2 million acres 20,000 square miles
  
• It has only 2 roads that inter the park and those only a short distance
• from 1911 to 1938  the worlds largest producer of copper (Kennecott) ore nearing 90% copper,
• The peaks attract climbers from around the world

We visited the National Parks visitor center and walked a short hike, watched a movie about the park and talked to the rangers.  Very impressive and we thought we had seen everything that Alaska had to offer.  Another bonus adventure.

At the crossroads town of Glennallen we turned south on the Richardson (Alaska A4) for our trip to Valdez, at the south end.  The should keep us busy for a few days.  This is also gold rush area, but bigger than the gold was the copper rush, that was the real money maker, far beyond the gold.  It doesn't stop there, try "Black Gold and the Alaskan Pipeline, tourists, RVing, history, earthquakes, birdwatching, weddings, museums, glaciers fishing, small boat docks, The Alaska State Ferry,  Prince William Sound excursions, major cruise line ports, and even the hugh disaster known as the Exxon Valdez (that is still paying $$$$ off and will be for years).  All are big money makers for this area and I don't see gambling on the list, this place is just down right exciting. The earthquake of 1964 and the resulting tidal wave, destroyed Valdez, that made it necessary to completely rebuild in a new location about 3 miles away.  The new Valdez is turning 45 years old and some of us are old enough to remember 1964.
I stopped at the Valdez museum and spent several hours reading about the area.  Some of the 1897 All American Gold Rush stories are almost unbelievable.  This was the wild gold rush days when men came here to make a fortune. Few did and many died trying.


It time to get out and about for the day is nice

from Valdez, AK

John