Valdez area

The road to Valdez was almost as rough as the road to Chicken, AK, but it was paved and it was probably a 20 times longer stretch of extremely rough road.    There were a couple major construction projects requiring pilot cars along the way.   One of them had you drive down into a deep gully where they were installing a huge pipe to channel a large amount of water from a melting glacier up on the mountain above us.

Prior to heading down the Richardson Highway, we had read a few horror stories from that construction area,  from broken trailer hitches to completely snapped off tow bars due to the steep incline.  Motor homes usually have a fairly long overhang in the back, so steep inclines either up or down and have the back dragging the ground.

We got to our campground and our site was just across from our friends Larry and Sue. We had briefly met them in Teslin Lake, and a couple days later we had drinks and dinner a couple times in Whitehorse.

Larry told us there was a parade here at 3pm and we walked over to watch the King and Queen of the north go by in their float.

We were informed by the campground when we checked in that our boat trip on the Lulu Bell was canceled due to a mechanical issue.   We made reservations with the Stan Stevens tour boat for the day after our canceled trip.

We drove over to the fish hatchery one evening and there was an amazing amount of fish trying to get thru the weir up the river to the hatchery and beyond.   In the parking lot were signs saying that there is a large dam above us on the mountainside and if there is an earthquake to “Run for your Lives.”  Comforting…

 

 

 

 

 

We drove out past the hatchery to the Alyeska Oil Terminal where the Alaska pipeline ends at Prince William Sound.   The pipeline is over 40 years old and it was only expected to last 20 years when built.   Currently it’s running at about 50% capacity.  Oh,  by the way,  they didn’t allow us to go into the terminal, but we did see one tanker at the docks.

Between the hatchery and the oil terminal are lots of campgrounds along the road right on the Prince William Sound.   I hadn’t seen them on any campground website.  They were packed when we drove by.

We went out to dinner a few times looking for good halibut here, but never really achieved that goal while here.   I will create another post for the trip to the Meares Glacier.