Richardson Highway 1st - 3rd Aug

What with fork issues and wet fog and drizzle, we left Valdez four days behind schedule. To raise the spirits we had an almost 3,000 foot mountain to cycle up, which would take us panting and sweating into the Chugach Mountains. After a sandwich lunch within touching distance of the very impressive Worthington Glacier, we coasted down for 22 miles and after 62, we arrived at our little doghouse (see photos 1st Aug) at Tiekel River. 

The following day, under an unusually blue Alaskan sky (with a few pink fluffy clouds thrown in), we left the Chugach mountains. A nasty steep hill up from Squirrel Creek and Tonsina Lodge was rewarded with another well-timed lunch and our first view of the Wrangell St Elias National Park and Preserve with the 12000ft plus peaks of Mount Wrangell, Drum and Blackburn (photos still to be uploaded). After a friendly chat with some lovely people from Atlanta (who wondered if we were noolywedz), we made our way downhill to Copper Centre, where we stayed at the old copper mining railway depot and actually slept in a lineshack built in 1914, the only conversion being that a big bed had been shoved in it. For more information on the copper railway see http://www.copperraildepot.com/ (there is also a book available written by owner of the hotel and depot). After dinner at the historic Copper Center Lodge, we went for a few beers in the middle of a big trainset/bar (see photo 3rd Aug) and met a couple from Montana, Mike and Abrei, who were on their honeymoon cycling round Alaska!

The following morning, after an early brekkie of some weird berry bread, reindeer sausage and coffee, we set off for Gakona via Glennallen (for laundry and internet admin). Another impressive day of forests and mountains covered in snow ended up in the tavern at Gakona Lodge (the oldest in Alaska apparently) being regaled with some very interesting tales (see below) by a well-oiled pipeline maintenance worker called James O’Leary.

James was conceived on the Thompson Pass in 1954, when his parents got snowed in in their truck in a snow storm, and for four days they lived on fruit and veg until they were rescued. On Good Friday in 1964 there was a massive earthquake and a series of tsunamis in Alaska that destroyed all of Valdez and Portage and parts of Anchorage and Seward. On this day, James O’Leary’s father was waiting on the dock with his truck to pick up some cargo at Valdez along with some other truckers. The boat they were all waiting for came and just as it did, the earthquake struck, causing the sea to get sucked right down and when it came back, it swallowed everything: ship, cargo, dock, dockers, truck, truckers and most of the surrounding buildings. Three tsunamis struck in a row and after a year of searching, no trace was found of them - not the ship, the cargo, the dock, the dockers the truck, the truckers, the buildings - nothing. So now Valdez stands four miles away from where it was before, a totally new and typically small American mountain town with a very friendly population. For more information on this subject, see

 http://www.valdezalaska.org/history/earthquake.html

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdez%2C_Alaska

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