June 2 -- Traveling to Copper River Wilderness


Traveling to Copper River Wilderness
Where We are Headed Today
Today was a traveling day with a departure at 8 am from Kenai and arrival in Anchorage at 10:00 am for a two-hour stop in the downtown area.  We visited a few places for some gifts and stopped by the visitors’ center.  When they heard we were going on to Denali, the lady told us we could see Mt. McKinley from Anchorage and she took us out to and down to the street for the view.  There it was on the northern horizon – a huge triangular, snow-covered mountain.  She said that only about 30% of the people who visit the park get to see the mountain.  Hopefully, the weather will be clear enough so we will see it when we visit on Monday.
Back on the motor coach at 12:15 pm, we continued the drive toward Copper River.   
The drive took us east toward the Talkeetna and Chugach Mountain ranges and then between them on Glenn Highway.  At about 2 pm we pulled off to view the Matanuska Glacier, which is a valley glacier of about 26 miles in length and 4 miles in width.  
Matanuska Glacier


This also gave is good views of the Chugach range.   


We then reached an old glacier lake bed, 
Black Spruce in the Tundra
which is in the permafrost area where any buildings built with concrete foundations will sink due to the pressure causing the permafrost to melt.  We saw several places were this happened.  The area is very remote. 


At 5:00 pm, we reached the Copper River Wilderness Lodge.  Our room on the second floor had a great view of Drum mountain and a shield-shaped mountain in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park (largest NP in the US).   
Lodge Patio with Mountain Range Views
Dinner was at 6:20 pm and we had Crab Cakes on sriracha sauce marinated cabbage, Caesar Salad, and Salmon en papillote with vegetables and mashed potatoes.  At 7:30 we attended the ranger lecture on ice and fire, which focused on the changing national park with climate change.

Comments

  1. TheChemistryOfBeerJune 6, 2017 at 5:31 PM

    Did not know that pressure from a concrete slab was enough to melt permafrost. Thanks for teaching me something.

    ReplyDelete

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