Valdez and Kennecott, Day 16 and 17, I think

We pulled into Valdez this morning. We spent the night at the base of the Worthington Glacier on the side of the road about 40 miles from Valdez. Valdez is pronounced Valdees, and you will be told if you pronounce it the normal way. Fu#king mosquitos have found a way into my van via the heater ducks or somewhere.

They are having some success, as when we squash them they show signs of being well fed. I need to spend more time cleaning the inside of the windows than the outsides.

Anyway the ride down to Valdez is as scenic as they come with lots of glacial waterfalls washing down from the mtn cliffs, then we follow that water into town along the stream beside the road. I was of the opinion that Valdez is an oil town and would have little tourist value. You do follow the pipeline some, but most of the time you can’t see it, and you never see any oil managing plants once in town. It is worth the drive to see it.

We made a quick trip into and out of town, but before we got to town. Yesterday, we unloaded the bikes and went into the Mckarthy /Kennecott copper mine. It was 60 miles of dirt road that followed the old railway to the mine. Great stuff. Much easier than taking a car in there.


They are trying to make a tourist attraction at the copper mine, which of course it is, but they have problems. There is lots of private land up there. The national parks are in control of the Wrangle Mtn Range. But they have a treaty of some sort with the local owners that says that they have free run around there, even in vehicles.

So first when Doug and I ride up to the beginning of the interesting stuff, there are all sorts of parking concessionaires that want you to pay for parking. Then they want to shuttle you around for more money. It is a mile across a river to the old town of Mckarthy, then it is 2 more miles up to the mine, and another mile to the glacier beyond that.



We can ride across the walking bridge (strong and big enough for a 4 ft wide 1000 lb vehicle), and skip all that concessionaire stuff, but we get long looks from the folks that we aren’t paying. Last year when I was there, there were no organized parking lots. They will figure out, soon, how to make everyone pay, but they haven’t got it worked out yet……but it coming….ah, don’t you just love progress???

We can ride our bikes all the way to the mine. The road goes to the glacier, but the law says that only local owners can use those roads. Tourists have to walk. That sucks. I had a long talk with a gal park ranger who explained all that to us.

Kind of funny or sad that up there you can have quads, motorcycles, bicycles, and hikers all on the same trail, but down here it takes a different trail for each of those venues. I would have liked to ride up to that glacier, but I wasn’t going to walk up there.

I look at a dualsport bike as a ride for the handicapped. I can’t walk for miles to see things. Do you think I could get a handicapped sticker for my DR? Who would I ask about that. 

But she also explain what all the rock piles that were strewn for miles around there were. I had assumed it was talus piles from the mine, but it wasn’t that at all. It was what was left behind when a glacier recedes. You see a glacier carries rocks along with it, and it dumps the rocks at the end where it melts. It melts in the same place for years and there is a big pile of rocks left there. As it recedes, it dump more rocks there, and this is one way get miles and miles of piles of sedimentary rocks.

Now you know where all that gold up there came from. The glaciers move a lot of ore around, and break it all up and the heavy stuff (gold) all works its way down to bedrock. All you have to do is work your way down through the permafrost, and pick it up. That’s hard work though, and there have been a lot of others there before you.

All that BS aside, Doug is feeling more comfortable on his NX250. At one point where they were doing road work to widen a section of that dirt road, they would blast and then load the rocks in a large ore truck so we had to wait for a spell.

There was a sign that said 'prepare to stop'. Doug was leading, and he was approaching a large water truck who was barreling at him. I could see they were both going to get to a narrow spot in the road
at about the same time. Doug just nailed it, and got there about 30 yards before the water truck. He squirted through safely, and the water truck never slowed.

Cool. The significance here is that the water truck driver gave Doug a high sign of approval, instead of the 'what the fuc& are you doing gesture', that I expected.

Its the way the 'Great White Northwest' is. You do your thing, and I do mine. If you didn't cause any real problem then it is approved of. Everywhere we have gone the dualsport bikes are approved of. Even after you roost someone they are still waving and have a smile on their faces

We were loading the bikes back on the trailer after yesterday's ride while a town cop was driving by. I thought that maybe I shouldn't have parked where I was, but no, the cop just wanted to take a closer look at the bikes, and he had a happy face and another high sign for us as he went by.

It's different up there. So we saw what we had time to see, and left the mine for Valdes.
We stopped at a café for a burger not far from where we loaded the bikes. Up there thay take an old house and make a café and convenience store out of the place. This one had been converted long ago.

We enjoyed a great burger and got to talking with the proprietor. She also has a cute daughter of about 10. Anyway the gal had the place up for sale. She had had enough, she was heading back to Arkansas as soon as she could. It is like that a lot up there. It seems so peaceful…..and perfect, I suspect, until the realities of a few years up there grind you down.

There was a 30 year old guy and his wife in there talking to us as well. They lived in Alaska. He was full of enthusiasm for living up there. He was beside himself over an antique crosscut saw that he had just bought at an antique store near the copper mine. He paid 200 dollars for it. Some folks I’ll just never understand. Clearly a case of having too much money. Nice guy though.