Friday, 27 July 2018 – Travel day to Valdez

This pic doesn’t do it justice, but this is Keystone Canyon on the way into Valdez
Bridal Veil falls in Keystone Canyon
Horsetail falls in Keystone Canyon.
Maverick climbing the falls at Crooked Creek Visitor Center just outside Valdez
Valdez harbor, unfortunately the clouds prevent seeing the mountains.

The drive today is just over 2 hours. The Richardson Highway has speed limits of 65 MPH but we couldn’t go more than 55 due to the rough roads with the dreaded frost heaves. The last hour of the drive was amazingly beautiful One of the prettiest drives anywhere. You drive close by the Worthington Glacier and we plan on going back to check it out while in Valdez. As you get close to Valdez you drive through the Keystone Canyon with Bridal Veil and Horsetail Falls. The canyon is amazing the falls are right on the road and really beautiful. We had booked the Valdez KOA because the parks closer to town were all booked weeks ago. I didn’t realize this park doesn’t offer sewer. Oh well, we can’t run the clothes washer for the next three days. We didn’t even setup before we headed into town for lunch. We chose the Old Fashion Diner for lunch. We each ordered our own burger and fries but quickly wished we had shared just one as usual. The food was very good and portions large. It didn’t take too long to check out downtown. On the way back to the RV park we stopped at the Chugach National Forest Information Center. We stopped because there was a cool waterfall just behind the building. Maverick and I enjoyed a short rock climb 20 or so feet up the waterfall. The waterfall is very pretty and like many in the area starts as a creek many hundreds of feet up very sheer mountains. Valdez sits beautifully between very sheer mountains and is one of the the more picturesque settings of any town we’ve seen in Alaska. Unfortunately the town is a little small and so doesn’t have quite as much to offer as some of the other towns. This afternoon Donna booked us a Glacier Cruise for Sunday.