Today we racked up the 10,000th mile of our journey.

For the first 70 miles or so the drive into Valdez from the junction with the Glen Highway is fine alpine scenery with wide river valleys and impressive mountains. But with about 20 miles to go, the road approaches Thompson Pass and the scenery becomes more dramatic. From the top of the pass, mountains of the Chugach Range on the southern side of Valdez Arm are simply breathtaking. And we had nice weather so that we could see them.

The Chugach Mountains cover an amazingly large area, we have been seeing them in one direction or another since before we got to Anchorage the first time.

The town of Valdez - the most northerly ice free port in the US - is not noteworthy, it's a modest size town set up for tourists and to serve the oil pipeline, but its location is probably the most scenic of all the towns we have visited; and that's saying something. As we have noted before we are still a bit early in the season and not all tourist facilities are open, but non the less we found a laundry, dump station, water, and internet so could prepare for the next leg of the journey.

However, some of the history of Valdez deserves comment. Situated on Valdez Arm the first European explorer was - you guessed it - Captain Cook. At the turn of the 20th century the town rose to prominence as the gateway to the All American route to the Alaskan gold fields. Thousands of stampeders arrived in Valdez having spent all their money on supplies for a year only to find that there was no route to the gold fields. The owners of the steamship company had made up the story about the All American route to generate business for their ships. I cannot imagine what it would have felt like to be one of those stampeders. Once in Valdez the spampeders did what you would expect, they created a route to the gold fields.

Like many towns we have seen in southern Alaska, Valdez had a fine bike and walking path running out along the highway so we took the opportunity to go for a walk. For the first time on the trip I was able to walk in shirt sleeves.

Our explorations finished we drove back up the Richardson Highway to the turnoff to the Edgerton Highway. This road goes east along the Copper River into the Wrangell St Elias National Park for 34 miles to the town of Chitina. It then turns into a 60 mile gravel road along the Chitina River to the township of McCarthy which is where we plan on going tomorrow.

Just after turning onto the Edgerton Highway we had to stop as the rougher road had dislodged some cupboard doors, so I pulled off the road onto a little gravel spot. We had not been there more than 3 minutes when a guy came up and asked so what are you doing here?. Turns out we had pulled onto his property and he was a little sensitive about lower 48ers using his land as an informal camp ground. We talked for quite a while about Australia - he R&Red there during his 3 tours in Vietnam, has a brother who lives in the Seattle area, and eventually he offered that we could stay the night if we wished. However, we pushed on further up the road. Nina and I keep reminding ourselves that while the drive to Inuvik and Deadhorse might have had some elements of a wilderness journey most of the trip, even in North America, is really a cultural experience. Guess this was one of the experiences.

Tonight we camped on the gravel bed of the Copper River. We had fine views of the Wrangell Mountains. On the dry parts of the river bed there are numerous fishing wheels waiting, presumably, for the salmon later in the season.

Last night after dinner, and after writing the journal, we went for a walk along the river bank near the closed Squirrel Creek Campground and discovered that one or more beavers had been hard at work some time in the past. There was a patch of about 2 dozen trees that had been felled by the little workers. The thing that we found surprising was that the trees ranged from 8 inches to over 12 inches in diameter. In most cases the trees that had been felled still lay on the ground. I guess I just don't understand beavers.