Road Trip 2010: Day 30Valdez to Mendeltna

Thursday July 8

A short travel day today as we backtracked a bit to leave Valdez and get back on to the Alaskan Highway at Glennallen. Of course, since we didn’t have any boat cruises planned, the weather was superb! When Terry and I left Valdez at 7:15 AM there were patches of blue in the cloud cover. We had a little bit of fog on the flats before we started to ascend The Hill to go through Thompson Pass, but once through the pass the sky was completely clear.

We stopped on the way to take pictures of Horsetail Falls and Bridal Veil Falls in Keystone Canyon and then again at Worthington Glacier park. We had passed these by on our way in because 1) it was raining and 2) we were running a little late. Today there was no problem on either count.

Horsetail Falls

Bridal Veil Falls

We also got up close to the Worthington Glacier.



We continued on to the lookout for the Wrangell Mountains and again had great views of some of the taller peaks in North America—peaks that were obscured by rain and fog the other day.

Mounts Drum, Snyder and Sanford

Mounts Zanelli (the tiny one on the left) and Wrangell

We stopped again at the visitor’s center of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park to take the short ½ mile loop trail through the forest. (Again, it was raining the other day.) We also caught the park’s video that shows just what is out there in this area the size of Connecticut. We missed it the other day because it’s shown on the hour and runs for 22 minutes. We had arrived at just 10 after the hour and decided not to wait around for the next showing.

After eating lunch in the parking lot of the National Park we headed on down the road to our campsite in Mendeltna and the Pizza Party that awaited!

Our campsite hosts way out here in the middle of nowhere; about half way from there to there, have a lovely old log facility. And Molly made one heck of a pizza! Actually, she made about 20 of them.

After we finished our pizza, our youngest traveler sat down at the piano. His shirt may not have been glazed with dirt, but for an eleven year-old, he sure could play.

Jonathan played for us.

Part of the gang sat in rapt attention as Jonathon played.

Jonathon's Grandma and Grandpa also performed a bit of a sing-along.

Entertainment over, we turned in to be ready for Friday's run to Anchorage.