Driving in Southcentral Alaska

As we drove from Denali up to Fairbanks, and then down around to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, we were repeatedly treated to gorgeous vistas of wide rivers -

…mountain ranges -

(each more beautiful than the last)

…glaciers -

…and even the Alaska Pipeline.

Rather than typing in a bunch of interesting facts, I’ll let you read the info board we did:

I cut off its starting location, which is Prudhoe Bay. That first picture showed it coming from underground, then continuing on above ground. The bends are built for expansion joints and flexibility in the event of an earthquake. When we were in Valdez, a few days later, we saw a tanker getting filled at the terminal, which I’ll post later.

Random comment - if you’re ever in Fairbanks and want to kill a couple of hours, we can highly recommend the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum. They had lots of super early cars, as well as fashion pieces of the comparable eras. Both of us found both facets very interesting.

As we headed south, we drove along the Wrangell Mountains, and were blown away by their size and beauty.

We spent the night in a little town (Glenallen) that lies in the shadow of these gorgeous peaks, and had an even clearer view when we left in the morning (even though the light wasn’t optimal).

We stopped at the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park visitor center, took a walk in the woods (swatting mosquitoes the whole way) -

…and learned about fish wheels.

Hopefully, you can visualize how they work from my description here. In the picture above, current would be flowing left to right, pushing the paddle (that is currently out of sight) and bringing the left basket into the water, scooping up salmon swimming upstream. As the basket rises, the fish fall to the side near the center, that has a slanted floor, and they slide into the holding pen that is the long stacked logs.

They were first used in North Carolina in 1829, but their major deployment was on the Columbia River (Washington) in the 1870’s. They were too successful, and were banned in the late 1920’s. They can still be used for subsistence fishing on the Copper and Yukon Rivers in Alaska, but all salmon caught have to be reported to the Dept. of Fish and Game.

Some interesting Wrangell-St. Elias National Park stats: 9 of the 16 highest peaks in the US are here. It is the largest National Park in the US, and is the size of 6 Yellowstones! We barely set foot in it during our hike, but I couldn’t stop taking pictures of the peaks as we drove by.

I keep trying…

Just about every road we drove down was lined with the fireweed you see above.

There weren’t too many lakes where I could get reflection shots, but I’ll keep trying -

All my favorites - mountains, river, fireweed and glacier:

Next post will proceed from here, the Worthington Glacier, on into Valdez and out into Prince William Sound.