To Valdez in a Fog

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 - Day27

We shook off the dust of Tok, AK at 8:30 this morning and headed south down Highway 1(the Glenn Hwy).  This highway follows the northern boundary of the Wrangell-St.Elias National Park and Preserve.  This wilderness park is the largest park in the American National Park system.  It contains most of the glaciers found in North America and it also has some of the highest mountains.  We skirted the periphery of the park most of the way to Valdez.  We will be doing a short side-trip into this park on the return leg. We normally like to do a circle route, avoiding return trips through the same area.  In the case of Alaska, there just aren’t that many options.  Most of the wildlife today was smaller in stature.  Lots of rabbits, a couple of foxes and lots of dead porcupines.  Just past the town of Glennallen, we turned onto the Richardson Highway (Alaska 4) that would bring us into Valdez.

As we drove the Richardson Hwy., we could periodically see the Trans Alaska Pipeline which brings oil 800 miles from the Prudhoe Bay oilfields on the Arctic Ocean to Valdez on the Gulf of Alaska.  The oil is then loaded into tankers for the trip south to the refineries. 

When we were about 35 miles outside of Valdez we started to notice that clouds were billowing over the Thompson Pass; probably the effect of warm moist ocean air rising over the mountains.   As we passed the the Worthington Glacier we noticed that the cloud bank seemed to be rolling in.  At first I thought that this was just the cooling effect of the Glaciers at this elevation.  We soon found ourselves in a thick, haze headed “down” the mountain. I kept the truck in second gear with fog lights and hazard signals on, during the 4 mile descent..  I could see approx. 30 feet in front and just hoped that no one rear-ended me.   Without a doubt this was the thickest fog that I’ve ever experienced.  The fog dissipated around Keystone Canyon where we were able to enjoy a couple of beautiful waterfalls.  We arrived in Valdez in under cloudy skies and with a light drizzle falling.  Valdez seems to be a pretty little port city, with a vibrant downtown/harbour area, not unlike Prince Rupert.  We are looking forward to spending the next few days here exploring the sights.