This morning we ate breakfast at the Grand View Campground restaurant before getting on the road. We traveled further east to the town of Glenallen and then south on the Richardson Road to Valdez. The roads today were not the best as there were numerous frost heaves and damaged areas on the roads. Shortly after turning south we stopped at the Wrangell-St.Elias National Park Visitor Center.
This National Park is America's largest park at 13.2 million acres (that equals 6 Yellowstone Parks). The Malaspina Glacier in the park is larger than the state of Rhode Island. There are just a few roads in the park- most areas are accessible by hiking or by planes. It is mostly wilderness. We watched a movie about the park with beautiful scenery.
As we moved on south the Alaskan pipeline was visible from the highway. About 30 miles from Valdez we were able to see the Worthington Glacier
and then we passed through Thompson Pass at 2678 feet. Thompson Pass is known for its snowfall extremes. Deep snow was at this time on the mountainsides. From this point we descended for a little more than 7 miles through the Keystone Canyon, a beautiful green canyon with tall waterfalls.
Then we entered Valdez a town that seems to be surrounded with snow covered mountains. We got campsites in the Bay View RV Park facing the bay area. The ladies in this RV park office were extremely friendly and helpful. Later in the day, a woman and a young man lured bald eagles with fish. The fish were thrown a distance and the eagles would swoop in, picking the fish up with their talons.
Supposedly, this is an every evening event.
