Souvenirs From The Road: Valdez - More Fishing and Seeing Friends!

Day 92 – August 1 and we have a goal to get on the Palmer side of Anchorage. We landed for the night at Matanuska Glacier SRS. This is a small campground, 12 sites, but there are a few that are long. There’s a nice 1 mile trail to view the glacier. It’s been a nice evening and everyone is tired. It’s been a while since we have driven 7 hours in a day!

Matanuska Glacier

There's Dahl sheep in them there mountains!

Glacier View with a little fireweed blooms.

Glaciers everywhere!

Day 93 – August 2 Our destination today is GlennAllen, not too far of a drive, but the road was buckled and there was some great scenery. Got more good pictures of the Matanuska Glacier. The thing about the Glenn Highway is you have the Chugach Mountains on one side and the Talkeetna Mountains on the other. With a few glacier sightings in between. One of these glaciers is the Nelchina Glacier. It winds downward through the Chugach Mountains. We found a GREAT campground at Tolsona Wilderness Campground – about 14 miles west of Glenallen. Every campsite is on the creek. Beautiful. Quiet. Big rig friendly. $33 with your Good Sam card. Love it! In the afternoon we drove to the Wrangell-St. Elias Visitor Center at Copper Valley. It was great. No views due to cloudy weather. Wrangell-St. Elias contain some of the nation’s highest peaks and the continent’s largest collection of glaciers. The landmass here is large – 20,630 square miles.

Tolsana Wilderness Campground - our porch for the evening.

A beautiful glacier - Nelchina

Day 94 – August 3 finds us on our way to Valdez! However, when we cross over Thompson Pass, there’s road construction and drizzle which makes it hard to view the glaciers and mountains. We did stop at Bridal Veil and Horseshoe Falls. Our campground for the next few nights is Bear Paw Adult Park and no, it isn’t a “clothing optional” type of park as the name implies. It does insure that you have a very nice site on the harbor with relatively no traffic and it’s very quiet. We cooked a big dinner as we had special guests this night – Randy and Susan Everitt who are from Sweeny but spend their summers at their home here in Valdez. Also want to mention that we parked by folks we met back at Talkeetna at the Mat-Su RV park. So, again, it’s a small world! We had a great evening!

Bridal Veil Falls

Horse Tail Falls

A chilly dinner! Susan, Randy, Ron and Donna

Our porch view for the evening!

Day 95 – August 4 dawns with a beautiful, clear blue sky. Now I need to remind everyone – Alaska is known for mosquitoes – and we haven’t had many. And it’s supposed to rain everyday……but we keep seeming to bring the Texas sunshine and dry weather with us! We are told that Valdez averages about 5 sunny days during the summer. Guess we are here just right! We grabbed our fishing poles and headed to the hatchery where they said the salmon were running. It was fun catching! But it was pink salmon, at the end of their life cycle. The locals catch them and can for dog food to help them get through the winter. They have really big dogs around here! Again, life revolves around the salmon. We met up with Randy and Susan and drove back out to Worthington Glacier. Wow has it shrunk since we were last here 13 years ago! They invited us over for dinner. Their hospitality and home were just great! Loved it and enjoyed Susan and her quilts she makes.

Catching salmon is fun! Ron with the pole, Greg and Donna in the background.

Worthington Glacier

Mary and Ron

Randy and Susan

Eating some salmon!

Beautiful moonrise! Looks cold!

Beautiful!

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Close to midnight here at Valdez.

Valdez Harbor

Day 96 – August 5 We took a walk through town. Found where our fishing charter will be tomorrow. Valdez is having their “Gold Rush Days” so went to the market. Toured through the Old Valdez museum to learn more about the Good Friday earthquake of 1964. (I also didn’t realize but the Exxon Valdez incident also incurred on Good Friday. Reckon these folks might cringe just a little when that day rolls around?) In the afternoon, Randy and Susan picked us up and took us for a drive to Mineral Creek. It’s a bumpy gravel road with a great waterfall and short hike. They also took us to the college’s museum. It is free and it is excellent so if you are ever in the area, look it up. It has been a really great day!

Mineral Creek Falls

Loved this display at the Valdez College Museum.

Ron, Mary, Susan and Randy at Mineral Creek

They tried to put Donna in jail at the "Gold Rush Days"!

We met these folks back in Talkeetna and were lucky enough to camp by them again and enjoy a good visit!

Day 97 – August 6 This is the day of our big Valdez Charter! Armed with our fishing licenses and our fishing derby tickets, we were at our boat at 5:45 am! Had to wait for the captain…….. Our charter was for 6 people and the captain. It was a nice boat. The captain really worked hard – he should have had some help. It was a really long day with a lot of bumps. Almost 3 hours out and then the 3 hours back – we didn’t get back until around 7:30. It was cloudy in the bay, but I think this ended up being our best fishing day! Ron and I each caught 2 small and 2 large halibut. Plus 3 silver salmon and some rockfish. Shipped home another 50 pounds of fish! Randy and Susan came to see our catch. Told them good-bye. Such sweet people that we have known practically all our lives. We are so tired! Washed our filthy fishy clothes and ate leftovers!