- Visit the fish hatchery near Valdez
- North on the Richardson Highway
- Detour to Wrangell-St-Elias National Park on the lonely Nabesna Road
After breakfast and a shower, we start the drive to the local fish hatchery. Another place I visited on my first trip to Alaska in 2009. As soon as we leave town, we see a black bear on the street. Finally the first bear outside of Denalis and the bear tour to Wolverine Creek, it was about time! At the hatchery, the salmon are prevented from their natural spawning migration into the stream by a barrier. Instead, they are diverted to the fish ladder and basin and processed there. Not a particularly beautiful sight but quite impressive. The water is boiling with the fish. It would be easy to prey here by hand. This place naturally also attracts Master Petz, but not during our visit. But other predators are also magically attracted. This is how we see gulls, seals and a sea lion.
The interesting section of the inland route is still rainy today. The further we get inland, the friendlier the weather becomes. Shortly after the Thompson Pass we reach the Worthington Glacier, which comes close to the road. Of course we don't miss that and hike the few meters up to the glacier tongue. The deep crevices glow in all sorts of shades of blue. Since we have to be back in Whitehorse in three days, a detour to the ghost town of Kennicott is unfortunately no longer an option. The route leads along the vast Wrangell-St-Elias National Park. The park alone is as big as Switzerland and thus by far the largest national park in the USA: Together with the adjacent Canadian Kluane National Park, the Glacier Bay National Park and the Tetlin Juction Wildlife Refuge, this is the largest protected area in the world. The park consists mostly of untouched, completely undeveloped mountain wilderness with some of the highest mountains on the continent and huge glaciers. From Slana we drive about 40 kilometers on the Nabesna Road into the park. There we find a place not far from a lake on the wonderful Kendesnii Campground. We grill another of our salmon and make stew with it.
