On to Valdez, NOT Exxon Valdez though...

As usual, I'll begin my blog with the weather. We woke up to mixed clouds and sunshine today. The temperature wasn't too bad at 7 deg C, at least for Alaska. As the day progressed, the mixed sun, cloud and showers pattern persisted. The temperature eventually reached a peak of 15 deg. Not a bad day at all, especially when the sun peeked through the clouds.

We decided to make a trip today to Valdez, a port town of about 4000 on Prince William Sound. It's main claim to fame is the oil industry there and in particular the end of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. This is where the oil is trans-shipped into oil tankers. In 1989, as you may well remember, The Exxon Valdez tanker grounded itself in the sound here and caused the biggest oil spill in North America, at least up to now. The current oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico makes the Exxon Valdez spill seem like few drops spilled from a bucket.

We have also decided to make this our farthest excursion into Alaska. We are finding that we have to drive quite long days in order to get everything that we planned into 5 weeks of travelling. Also, the costs here in the frozen north are more than we planned for. Food, gas and hotels are much more expensive than we had planned on. Originally we had planned to travel to Seward via Anchorage but Valdez is also on the coast and we thought it would be a good compromise.

We stopped beside a river shortly after leaving Glennallen. We hand washed our Honda right beside the river (see movie clip above). This was not because we couldn't afford to pay for a car wash, but we can't seem to find a car wash anywhere. We got most of the mud off so that at least we don't get our clothing filthy dirty every time we open a door or rear hatch to get to our stuff. We hope to put the car through a proper car wash in Valdez to get it really clean though.

We took a side trip along the Copper River which is very scenic. The mighty Copper River is one of the swiftest and most rugged rivers in Alaska. Twisting and cutting deeply through the Wrangell and Chugach mountains, it's 300 mile stretch of pristine glacier-fed waters are riddled by hundreds of rapids.

Every May, around the 15th, the first salmon of the season return to the rivers and streams of Alaska with the Copper River being one of the first. King, Sockeye, and Silver salmon embark on their long journeys up the 'Copper' to spawn and lay their eggs.

We stopped along the road to visit the Liberty Falls. The place is used as a state camp site and is beautifully situated to say the least. We met a couple of Alaskans who were kind enough to take a picture of the two of us. By the way, the only wildlife we encountered today was an owl who flew right across the road in front of us. How cool is that? Owls are nocturnal and are not usually seen during the day.

Since our detour didn't go anywhere, the road eventually turns into a dirt road and stops at some small settlement, we eventually turned around and got back onto highway 4. This road turned out to be just fabulous as far the scenery is concerned. We saw numerous wild mountain rivers, glaciers and waterfalls. We stopped at the Worthington Glacier and walked close to the foot of it. Although not as large as the Athabasca glacier in Banff National Park, it was still quite impressive.

Shortly after that, the road reached the top of the mountain pass at 2718ft and we began our descend to the port of Valdez. Oh, before I forget, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline runs parallel to Hwy 4 and is visible from time to time. This pipeline is a marvel of engineering. It runs about 800miles (1280km) from Prudhoe Bay on the Beaufort Sea to Valdez. Along some of the route, the pipeline (48" diameter) is raised above the permafrost. Heat sinks are attached every so often to dissipate any heat away from the supports that are sunk into the permafrost to prevent thawing of the permafrost.

Highway 4 wends itself through the Keystone canyon about 20 miles north of Valdez. The canyon is just an absolutely wonderful place to take pictures of the steep mountain sides dotted with waterfalls that fall into the river at the canyon floor. In particular, the Bridal Veil and Horsetail falls were breathtaking in their beauty. Just at the time we were there, the sun was shining, enhancing their beauty even more. Praise God for creating such a beautiful world for us to enjoy.

We got to Valdez in good time and got ourselves a hotel room. It seems that there is some sort of convention going on since it is almost impossible to find a room at this time. Luckily for us, there must have been a cancellation at this hotel and we booked it quickly. I tried to reserve a room last night in any hotel listed on line and couldn't because everything was booked solid. After plunking down $179.00 (US) and swallowing hard, we have a beautiful luxury room with kitchenette to enjoy. We went to the local grocery store to stock up on vittles again and brought home a couple a frozen meals and a salad. We'll made our own dinner and ate in for a change.

All-in-all, we had a very good day today, no nerve shattering, nail-biting trips along steep, slippery mountain roads without guard rails this time.