After finally making it back to Valdez Bay (and saying goodbye to Kenny and Pangea Adventures) we headed up the Richardson Highway. We´d passed several nice looking campgrounds on the way to Valdez, now the objective was Squirrell Creek Campground.

We´d decided to stay there because it was near the turn off to Chitina and the McCarthy Highway, and we thought it might be interesting to head a ways up there to see what it was like.

We drove to Squirrel Creek and set up camp in the dark.  We thought we had a good idea what the campground looked like from our drive-by earlier in the trip, we were amazed when we woke up...

Squirrel Creek Campground

Much as we would have liked to stay there, the next day we packed up camp and headed back up the Richardson Highway, headed for Chitina and McCarthy Road..

The last time we passed through this way we´d all been "relaxing" in the van (your narrator in the far back studying the insides of his eyelids) and at one point Therese had spotted a picturescue view, only to whiz past it before she had time to talk Sean into pulling over. Fortunately she remembered that view, and since we had a beautiful blue-sky day ahead of us we decided to go back. 

From there, we headed up the road towards Chitina.

Chitina was once a booming town on an intersection of the railroad line that brought copper ore from the mining town of McCarthy to the ships at Valdez Bay.  When the copper mine shut down, Chitina´s livlihood disappeared. I don´t know what the population is today, but from a brief time in the town I´d guess about three - two of whom work at the general store there (an interesting place that seemed to have one of everything packed into a bunker-like , almost subterranean store.)

We never made it near McCarthy.... The road is described as "very bad" in the guide books, and while I think they exaggerate the difficulty a bit, it´s still something better taken slowly and with the right vehicle. We ended up stopping a few miles in for a nice lunch break at a small lake.  Sean tried some fishing, no luck unfortunately..

The ferry ride to Whittier started at a god-awful early hour of the morning, but we all managed (including our late sleepers!) We were up and had the car in line well before sunrise. 

Sunday the 12th turned out to be our only lousy weather day - cold, rainy, windy... We gave thanks many times for the fact that we were in a nice warm ferry (eating breakfast and lunch in the dining room) rather than out in a kayak. 

The ferry included a cruise-by sighting of the Columbia Glacier, which was nice despite the miserable weather on deck.

Whittier has no connection to the rest of Alaska by road - the only way in and out is either by boat or by train. That meant getting cars from the ferry to the road involved driving up on a flatbed train car and riding the train for a bit.  Interesting..

The train ride was fun, going through a couple very long, very dark tunnels en route, and then we were off and back on the road.

We stopped for a bit at Portage Lake, of which we saw very little. These two pictures are cheating - I shot them in June when I was in Anchorage on another trip. During September we couldn´t see a darn thing - too foggy..

From there we hit the road to head for the airport and home!

You can head home too, or continue on to a page of links to information on Alaska, or a thumbnail page with more of the pictures shot during the trip.