We left the decommissioned boat launch and stopped at the Wrangell-St. Elias Visitor Center to tour the buildings and take a short hike. We then headed towards Valdez, but the weather deteriorated to very windy, very rainy, and crap visibility, so we stopped at a gravel pit near Thompson Pass about 30 miles short of Valdez. According to iOverlander, we should have been able to see a number of glaciers from there, but it never cleared up. We took a walk along the river through the valley and got occasional glimpses of the mountains as the clouds parted, but mostly it was just cold and gray and wet.
After leaving the very wet gravel pit the next morning, we drove through lots of rain and fog to Valdez, but had awesome views of waterfalls and mountains and glaciers anyway. We got into Valdez and hit the Safeway for cold relief supplies, and discovered that the very expensive American Theraflu is exactly the same as the much less expensive and equally effective Viro-Grip, which is almost gone from our brought from Belize pharmaceutical supplies. We headed out to the waterfront and walked along the harbor and through a small park with a peak for 360 degree views, and then went to one of the food trucks for the best fish tacos we’ve had in a long time, although the fish was halibut which probably wouldn’t be appearing in Mexican fish tacos. We headed out of Valdez and went to the Solomon Gulch Hatchery, where we saw the process of an “ocean ranch,” where the adult salmon are released into the wild where they can be wild caught, but they always return to the hatchery where they were spawned so their eggs and milt can be harvested. In addition to lots of salmon at all stages in their journey up the fish ladder and the stream, we also saw lots of sea lions, some otters, and a few seals, but alas, no bears.
We left Valdez to partially clearing skies which revealed more and more amazing views, and stopped at the Worthington Glacier for a look before heading to a decommissioned campground on the Little Tosina River at MP65, where we were joined by only one other camper on Labor Day weekend Friday night despite having seen lines of RVs and campers heading into Valdez.
