Valdez, Alaska

Good morning, my friends. Our drive wasn't particularly long yesterday, but it was made longer by the crappy roads we were traveling. It was a beautiful day though, and we drove through some of the more spectacular mountain vistas we've seen in Alaska. This morning, we find ourselves in Valdez.

We had a slow morning, and then had to hurry-skurry to get out of the previous place on time. We were bothered by hoards of biting flies. They chased us into the truck and clung to the windows as we drove away. It's a scary world insect-wise. Look at the size of this monster.

As we pulled out of the RV park, we were greeted by these two big boys off in the distance.

We first crossed the Tazlina River.

Look at that pretty glacial blue color.

Right after that, we crossed over the Klutina River.

It too was that beautiful glacial blue.

Just after the river, we were stopped to await a pilot car. We waited about 20 minutes before following for about ten miles. Reaching the other side, we found this long line of cars awaiting their turn. I took this picture to show you how many RVers there are on these roads. Many folks come to Alaska and rent an RV, and it seems to be a favored way to travel. Look especially at the right side of the image below. RV after RV, and they stretched on way beyond the frame of my picture.

The blooming fireweed painted the landscape with bright purple. So pretty.

Our first scenic viewpoint of the day was this Willow Lake Viewpoint. This picture barely does justice to the beauty of this spot.

Here's what our Milepost told us about it:

I took some zoomed-in shots of the mountains. I'd hate to try to identify them, but you can give it a shot. Standing and rotating left to right, this is what we saw:

Just a little way down the road, we stopped briefly to document this Pump Station 12.

There's not much to see here, but you can read what our Milepost told us below.

There were several mentions of places we could see the pipeline, but this was our best view.

From there, we passed through some stunning mountain vistas. Mike and I said, almost at the same time, if we had to describe Alaska using one feature, it would be the mountains.

Their jagged peaks would indicate they are young mountains.

In a different part of the Milepost, I read that an earthquake happens somewhere in Alaska every 15 minutes. They aren't always felt by anyone in Alaska, but nevertheless, it is a seismic place. We've said from the get-go that the landscape doesn't appear fully formed yet.

It was hard to decide which mountain this next section in the Milepost referred to, but we think it was this one. It's named for Billy Mitchell. 

Here's his story:

And just look at these jagged peaks.

Okay, so this next description in the Milepost got our attention. Any time we can stand up high and look down is worth a stop:

And whoa!

Running to the other side of the bridge, we saw this:

And just look at our shadow selves. We told them and told them not to go down there. Would they listen? What do you think? These two get more unruly every day.

Here's another shot looking upstream.

Moving on, here's a shot of the Worthington Glacier:

And one of the most scenic spots was yet to come as we drove through Thompson Pass.

There was a large turnout, and we pulled off to have a look. Looking left to right...

Straight ahead...

Looking to the right. If you look a little below and left of center, you can see some people standing out there for scale. They're tiny in this image. Zoom in.

A little farther to the right...

As we walked back to the truck, we noticed this RV. Read what it says on the side there. "We are a traveling family from Argentina fulfilling a dream." Kudos!

Here's what the Milepost told us about this spot:

Continuing on, we crossed this bridge:

It's nothing special, but here's why I took note of it:

And I had to shoot fast through our back window to capture this, but there's the tunnel:

Indeed, there were three bridges there. And just FYI, we were traveling in the opposite direction from how the Milepost was printed. I'm not at all sure I have my pictures in order.

But here's Huddleston Falls:

We'd been traveling alongside the Lowe River for quite some time. If we'd been reading the Milepost in order, it would have told us this:

Here's the section of the river it refers to:

Next, I took a picture of the avalanche gates, but it was all blurry. Still, the story is worth sharing, even without photographic evidence.

We passed through this blasted out section of rock:

Regarding the pipeline, this is what the Milepost told us:

When we take off on a day's drive in the morning, I snap a picture with my phone of all the things we might see along the way. The Milepost is a little difficult to understand until you've used it for a while. It is, however, a fabulously detailed guide telling us milepost to milepost what we'll see along the way. I'm working from a 2024 book (since we'd planned to take this trip earlier until COVID messed everything up.) Sometimes it tells us to look for something, and we don't see anything. Nevertheless, I liked these two entries, and so I included them, even though I don't have any photographic evidence that the things exist.

Also this:

We next passed by Bridal Veil Falls.

Here's a picture. It was huge. It might rival our Multnomah Falls back home.

And since water is always more interesting if you can see and hear it moving, I've included this short video. If you can't see the video, then click right here.

And here's another associated story that I liked.

Looking to the left, we were interested in how this hillside looks. The scratches you see are probably from glacial activity. We don't know what would explain the colors in the rock.

Just about a mile down the road, we passed by Horsetail Falls.

We were still about 20 miles from our final destination, but the Welcome to Valdez sign was there to greet us.

Valdez has quite a history. This is what the Milepost tells us about our current location. The section about the earthquake is particularly interesting. I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but I was nine years old, living in Hawaii, at the time of the earthquake. We had to get up in the middle of the night and move to high ground because of worries about potential tsunamis. Nothing hit Hawaii that night, but the whole episode fascinated me. I can remember writing an essay about it in school. 

Okay, and so that's all I have to tell you about yesterday's drive. We have no plans in particular for the day. The past week or so has felt busy, and so we're going to take advantage of it by taking a free day. We have tickets for the Lu Lu Belle cruise for Wednesday. It comes highly recommended. We're hoping to change our booking to tomorrow's cruise. The weather forecast is better for Tuesday. I haven't heard yet, and so we'll either do that tomorrow or Wednesday. Aside from that, we'll just enjoy some free time and spend some time toodling around Valdez to have a look at the place.

Our neighbor was kind enough to sent me a picture from home. This is the Checkers dahlia. I'm surprised to see it blooming so early, but it has been warm back home.

Also, if you've enjoyed this post, you can think my two kitty helpers. With so much to tell, I needed two cats for editing.

And with that, I'm off to enjoy a day of rest. It's going to be a good day. I'm hoping you have a good day ahead of you too.