7/9 to 7/11/05
As we leave Anchorage we backtrack over some highway we were on earlier and then turn onto the highway which takes us through Palmer, Ak. Palmer is 3500 population and is the host of the Alaska State Fair and also has a Job Corp site. There are mountains all around us as we pass on through Palmer. We are traveling in a valley beside the Matanuska River. Ahead of us is a mountain by that name and its glacier. The road has narrowed and we are seeing results of some permafrost. We are beginning to climb quite high along the slope of a mountain. The mountains have snow on them and suddenly we begin to see some glaciers, the Matanuska and Nelchina. The Matanuska Glacier flows northwest 27 miles. Some 1800 years ago it reached all the way to the Palmer area which is 60 miles away. The glaciers average width is 2 miles and its terminus is 4 miles wide. It has not receded for the last 200 years. It is very cloudy and raining some so we don’t have good views of the glaciers. We are passing through a Black Spruce Bog area which can mean permafrost. Many of the buildings are built up on stilts. We wonder if that has something to do with the permafrost. We will be staying in Glennallen, AK for 3 nights.. Our campground has full hookups but nothing else. No bathroom/showers, no TV or internet, not even a trash receptacle. But it is economical. We have several days before our mail comes to Tok, our next destination. On Sunday we took a side trip to Valdez. The mountains and glaciers on the way were most beautiful. Surely some of God’s handiwork. I have always thought there was nothing like the Colorado Rockies but, I tell you, these mountains in Alaska are so majestic. It seem like every place we have gone the mountains have been more beautiful than the area before. This trip was no different. It was a very cloudy day but we saw beautiful mountains, valleys with rivers rushing along side the highway and melting glaciers. Worthington Glacier was most spectacular to us because we were able to walk right up to it. The blue color seems to shine from inside the ice crystals. We could see the crevasses formed from the melting and the rocks that the ice pulls down with it as it melts. This was a great experience. As we passed over Thompson Pass we were actually in the clouds and could only see about 8 to 10 feet in front of us. Then as we came down the mountain we saw water falls, Bridle Falls and Horseshoe Falls, They flowed down from the very top of the mountain falling all the way to the canyon floor. The canyon walls were either covered with vegetation or rock slabs that looked like they could fall at any minute. Valdez is the terminus of the Alaska Pipe Line. We had hoped to see that area but they turned us away at the gate. We had followed it all the way from Fairbanks so were kind of disappointed. However on our way there we saw fisherman who seemed to be frantically fishing for salmon. We stopped to see what was going on. There were thousands of Salmon trying to swim up stream to spawn. The water appeared brown and with waves from the amount of fish. We could see them jumping in the air. It was like seeing fish at a fish hatchery. Old Valdez was destroyed in 1964 by a Tsunami. It was the result of a 9.2 earthquake which was centered in Prince William Sound. The Corp of Engineers realized the importance of this port and the city was relocated. Valdez is much like the many small ports we saw in Alaska. They rely on tourists, fishing and the shipping industry to survive. Much of Valdez is centered around the Alaska Pipe Line industry. On our way back home we saw a beaver lodge and dams in a pond. Beavers may inhabit the same lodge for many generations and a lodge can be as big as 15 feet high and hundreds of feet long. This lodge was not that big but it was interesting to see. On Monday we took a side trip to the Wrangell-St. Elias National Forest Visitors Center. The national forest is the largest in North America covering 13.2 million acres. We saw a film about this mountain wilderness. There are only 2 roads that lead into this park and each of them is less than 100 miles long. But there is much beauty for those who want to hike the mountains, float its rivers, ski its glaciers or fly over the landscape.