Land of the Midnight Sun
Day 13

We
departed Tok (prounced Toke) at a little after 8:00am. Our drive today will only be about 253 miles
so we feel like we can kind of take our time and really see the sights if there
are any. HMMMMMMM. Today turns out to be one of the best days
since the Ice Road Parkway.
The
scenery is gradually changing from patches of snow, and the smaller white and
black spruce trees with some aspens to larger conifers, and great fields of snow. The closer we got to the Richardson Highway,
the more snow we saw. Virtually all of
the rivers, creeks, ponds and lakes were for the most part frozen over.
Worlds largest Pet Rock, so valuable it is chained down
We started
seeing some amazing mountains off to the west with very high peaks.
We stopped alongside the road to try and determine what we were looking at. Irene has become a significant imitator of Sacagawea, reading maps and identifying landmarks. The mountains and peaks we are looking at are: Tanada Peak, 9240 feet, Mt Sanford 16,237 feet, Mt Blackburn 16,390, and Mt Drum at 12,010.
We stopped alongside the road to try and determine what we were looking at. Irene has become a significant imitator of Sacagawea, reading maps and identifying landmarks. The mountains and peaks we are looking at are: Tanada Peak, 9240 feet, Mt Sanford 16,237 feet, Mt Blackburn 16,390, and Mt Drum at 12,010.
As we
started driving, we began seeing another significant range that appeared to be
taller still. We were able to finally
identify these mountains as part of the Wrangell range, but did not research
the particular mountains. The landscape
gradually became all white with snow, with just a few patches of exposed earth.
Most
interesting was looking at the untracked snow and then seeing where various
animals had traipsed through it. The
snow was obviously very deep as we could see where the animals had sunk deep
into it and apparently had to make leaps to get out of it. There were several places where it the paw
prints were enormous compared to others, with a deep and wide scooped out area
where the beasts belly drug. Jim speculates
that this was a bear moving across the snow.
Later in conversation with our fellow travelers Jim and Shirley, he came
to the same conclusion.
Halfway
between Tok and Glenallen, the road became progressively worse with frost
heaves and we had to slow down significantly.
We were surprised when 3 Caribou jumped up in front of us and ran across
the road. They disappeared from sight so
quickly that we did not have a chance to take their picture.
Frozen Chistochina river. It is 1/3 mile wide at this spot
Shortly
we came upon the bridge over the Chistochina River. We stopped in the middle of the bridge to
take a picture, then decided to back up and park on the side of the road for
safety. We walked to the middle of the
bridge and took pictures. The river
was completely frozen over and was a a beautiful sight. During this 15 to 20 minute time frame, only
one car passed over the bridge. Rush
hour in the wilderness I guess.
We
stopped and had lunch at the Billy Mitchell cabin, (yes that Billy Mitchell of
Air Force fame). We then began the long
climb over Thompson Pass. This is called
the Top of the World Road although the pass is only at 3000 feet.
Starting the climb up the pass.
View of an unknown Glacier
The
mountains were spectacular with a ton of glaciers and snow falls. From the top of Thompson Pass, we looked down
into the Lowe River Valley, east of Valdez.
This is the river that Joey Ellis
spent 3 summers guiding rafts and where Jimmy Jr, drove with Joey over the
Cassiar Highway to. We even caught a glimpse of Prince William Sound.
View on Thompson Pass/ Top of World Road
The views
were absolutely spectacular with each turn of the road opening up to another
breathtaking vista. We started seeing ski tracks coming off the
top of mountains and glaciers and stopping about 100 yards short of the
road. We later learned that some
seasonal employees had been working in Valdez to save their money just to do
this Helicopter skiing. Pretty amazing.

Starting down off Thompson Pass

Bridal Veil Falls Frozen with "windows" to see water flow

We arrived in Valdez
and the RV park at 3:00pm. We had been
warned that Valdez still had a significant amount of snow on the ground and
campgrounds were struggling to get opened.
Valdez we would learn, has an average annual snowfall of just under 400
inches, with a record of 976. The RV
park we chose, Bear Paw, had about 15 sites opened with another 30 under snow.

Irene at Bear Paw RV Park, note plowed snow
We caused
a bit of a distraction when we first arrived,
as the office was closed until 3:30.
The worker that was scooping snow told us to park in that space over
there and wait till the office opened.
As we were setting up and getting level, the owner drove up and told us
we could not park there, that space and the one next to it were reserved. He was a bit annoyed even after Irene told
him that we were told to set up there.
No big deal, we were told to move to another space about 50 feet away
and we did.
I ride in this one? Really?
After
getting set up, we went to the office, registered and all was well. We then went to the LuLu Belle’s office ( 1
block away) and secured our reservation and the time we were to board, (10:45
the next day). We then walked back to
the RV park and decided to first cross the street and take a look at the LuLu
Belle. It was the first boat in the
Harbor closest to the street and our RV was the closest RV to the street. By happenstance, we were camped no more than
200 feet from the LuLu Belle. We could see her flying bridge from our Motor
Home. A sign of good things to come.
We spent
the remaining afternoon walking the street in front of the harbor, looking in
at a couple of café’s and a coffee shop, browsing a Tee Shirt shop and just
generally killing time and getting some fresh air. We now have about 3.500 miles on our motor
home (it had 8.8 when we picked it up) and are starting to get road weary. Whenever we get an opportunity to get out and
stretch a bit or take a walk, we jump on it.
Best Western across Street, Prince William Sound behind, Aleyska Pipeline Terminal is across sound
We had a
great dinner of homemade spaghetti, garlic toast and a salad and relaxed for
the evening. Jim stayed in the
motorhome so he could plug the computer
in and worked on the blog. Irene went
outside and sat at the picnic table and wrote in her journal. Bright sunshiney day tho it became a bit chilly
about 10:30 pm with full sunshine.