Worthington Glacier near Valdez, AK

Worthington Glacier State Recreational Site is 29 miles from Valdez, easily accessible off of the highway.  The recreational site consists of 113 acres. Worthington Glacier is 5,774 acres.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

There are two parking areas; one at the entrance off of the highway, and one further up the hill. The parking lot on top is larger, with room for RVs. Both have restrooms.

There is an easy 0.8 mile paved path, handicapped accessible, to a viewing platform. Also a covered area with information boards.

Or you can do a difficult hike up the hill, and along a narrow ridge for 2 miles to the top. (We only went a little way up for closer pictures.)

For more pictures of the glacier, please click here. (Only 33 this time.)  :)

07/26/19 Leaving Valdez

It has been raining every day off and on for about a week now, and the forecast shows it to be this way until August 1^st with high temps in the upper 50’s, lows in the 40’s.  Our sewer tank is full and we went to the Tesoro to dump and fill water. From there we left town to park at a boondocking spot near Worthington Glacier. The temperatures are only going to be in the upper 50’s for the next couple of days, so, hopefully, it’s warm enough to go to the glacier. Then we’ll head further north in hopes of more sunshine and warmer temps.

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Our cold, windy spot for the night near Worthington Glacier.

For pictures of our time spent in Valdez, please click here. (There's 381 in this batch.)

Old Valdez, AK

We went to the Old Valdez Museum. The building isn’t very big and most of the information there is on the 1964 earthquake. They had movies about the gold rush, the earthquake and how the town recovered. They were interesting. There’s a miniature version of the town made up under glass.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them. 

We also drove the Old Town Valdez driving tour. They have posters with QR codes on them to follow along at a web site that you have to read about the place. The history is interesting, but there’s really nothing to see at the sites because everything was destroyed; not by the earthquake, but the town was burned down years later.

For more pictures of the museum and the driving tour, please click here.

Is there an unwritten rule that signs pertain to the other person?

We’ve seen this often in national parks, trails, etc., where there is a sign stating, “No Entrance”, “Stay On The Trail”, things in that nature. Undoubtedly, you’ll see someone doing what they’re not supposed to be doing. If one person does it, then you’ll have others follow. It doesn’t matter what state we’re visiting, how old the people are, nationality, etc.

Case in point, we were at the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery this week, two separate days. There is a sign by the water, two of them actually, that state “NO ENTRY BEYOND THIS POINT”, with a circle and a slash through it, for those who can’t read I imagine. There was a lady with her two small sons walking back through it. (Nice thing to teach your children.) There was also a lady a little younger than us, who was taking pictures. She walked as close to the water that she could get past those signs. People followed right after her. The next time we went, the tide was low and a family walked way out to the water, past the signs again. There, again, a nice thing to teach your children.

I’ll get off my soapbox now; I just don’t understand.

Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery

The Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery is an interesting place. It’s too early for the bears to come eat the salmon, but there were sea lions eating. We went twice; once at low tide and the other time a higher tide. There were no sea lions at the low tide when we were there.

For more pictures, please click here.

Valdez, Round 2

This is our second time going to Valdez; the first, was in the middle of May. What a difference it makes with lack of snow and so much green!

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May/July

This time going past Worthington Glacier we could see the area. We’ll stop by here on our way out. There’s boondocking areas a couple of miles from it too with quite a few campers.  It was all covered with snow before.

May/July

We are staying at Glacier View Park again. This time there are a lot of campers/vans/cars there day and night. As long as it’s light outside, you can hear vehicles driving by. The water has changed also. It was mostly frozen the first time. Now, there’s ice floating around as it breaks off the glacier behind the hills. It changes daily.

May/July

This spot also has a lot of rafting, canoes, kayaks going daily.

In town we have good Verizon service, but at the parking area it varies from 1X to 3G to LTE, usually slow. No TV.  There is a free dump station/water at the Tesoro gas station in town, right beside a Safeway grocery store. We've been able to get mail/packages via general delivery at the Post Office.

I will do a blog post when we leave here with a link to lots of pictures.

07/10 to 7/13/19 Tazlina River bridge rest area

Since we had cell service, and a river view, we stayed here for a few days. There was usually a couple of campers and cars throughout the day and night.  The rest area has pit toilets and two shelters with picnic tables. Its not kept up well; one shelter and table are in bad shape. There’s a lot of tall grass and weeds. Not much garbage, which surprised me since there’s no dumpster.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

This was a drop-off area for river rafting; it was fun watching them.

One day we watched people repelling from a helicopter

The day before we left, we went to Glennallen, a couple of miles away, to get some groceries.  Typical of a small town, prices are more than usual. But we were really surprised at some of them! Needless to say, we only bought bread and decided we would get groceries once we got to Veldez.

We had 3 bar LTE, no TV.  It was raining off and on, which the state desperately needs.

For more pictures, please click here.

07/12/2019 Alaska fires

As of today, July 12th, Alaska has 161 active wildfires in the state. Some are small spot fires from lightening. Some are large and areas are evacuated. I heard the hospital in Fairbanks opened a special room for people to go to for respiratory problems, or just get out of the smoke.

You can click on the picture to enlarge it.

Most of the state is in a red flag warning. The temperatures were in the upper 80's and low 90's for about a week, with no rain, and that is unusual for here. Several areas hit record highs. Open fires and campfires are prohibited. 

The fire that was near us when we left the Watson Lake Campground on June 10th is still going. The highway nearby was closed for a while due to the smoke and how close the fire was getting to the highway. 

Per a website, in 2013, Alaska had a hot summer; during that year fires burned 1,319,866 acres. In 2014, Alaska had one of its wettest summers ever; during that year, fires burned 233,529 acres. 

On July 9th KTUU reported that over a million acres have been burned this year so far, so we're probably heading to that 2013 mark. 

According to the Division of Forestry, fire statistics; as of 2017, 2004 was the worse year for acreage burned. 

You would think there wouldn't be anything left to burn any more, but Alaska includes an area of more than 375 million acres. 

07/09 and 7/10/19, to Glenallen

Heading south toward Glennallen, it's still smoky. I think we'll have to go quite a ways yet.

Followed the pipeline and the river for a long way.

Gulkana Glacier is someplace back there. 

There were a couple of areas we considered maybe stopping for a few days, but they were still really smoky and there was no cell service at all.

We stopped at a gravel pit for the rest of the day and evening. Saw this poor camper being carried somewhere. 

The next morning we continued on to Glenallen, probably only about 40 miles to go. Figured we'd get some cell service, or have to go the library for wifi. Need to do app updating and see what there is in emails.

We had good cell service at the Tesoro station at the junction, so sat there for a little while. That was a busy place!

There's a lot of campers on the road. July is a busy month. We stopped at a rest area by the Tazlina River bridge, mm 110.6, about 7 miles from Glennallen. There is 3-4 bar Verizon LTE, pit toilets, picnic tables and a large parking lot right by the river.

For more pictures, please click here.

07-03-19 through 07-08-19 Ruby Creek bridge, mm 234.7

Leaving Delta Junction, we went through a military area again, stopped at a couple pullouts with information boards and pipeline, and had a moose run across the road in front of us again.  

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them. 

We stopped at a huge gravel parking area before Ruby Creek bridge, mm 234.7. There was a fifth-wheeler in one corner of the lot. We drove to a front corner, near the edge of the water.

We actually ended up staying here from July 3rd through the 8th.  Our cell service was 3-4 bar 1X. It worked for Curt usually, but was slow. I could receive texts, but that's about it. We figured for the 4th of July weekend it would be a good place to park. It's a huge lot. There isn't much water in the river, otherwise I'm sure it would be a busy place. 

There were a couple campers with us every night, but nobody stayed long except the fifth-wheel that was there when we got there. The pickup would usually be gone for the day, with a lady and kids at the camper. A lot of cars drove in to see the river. They probably expected a lot more water like we did. One couple took a bunch of equipment to the water, I think gold panning. They took back a 5 gallon bucket with something in it.  One camper parked near enough to us that we could hear their generator running all night. 

We went for a walk one of the nicer days and took our bear spray with. We haven't seen any animals, but you never know what's in the woods. We did find a lot of moose prints, two dead moose, moose scat; all pretty old. There was cow parsnip, which is worse than poison ivy. Here is an article about a hiker with a bad case. https://www.adn.com/adventure/outdoors/2016/06/16/hikers-beware-cow-parsnip-can-inflict-pain-on-those-who-dont-take-precautions/

The last two days it was really smoky from the fires in the state; you could barely see the mountains. We didn't open our windows; I have two little fans we used inside for a little breeze at least. Somehow the mosquitoes would find their way in though. 

For more pictures, please click here.