Canada Alaska 2008 Motorcycle trip Day 20

Day 20 -
View Larger MapWe woke at about 08:00 to more of the same light, misty rain as the day before. The continental breakfast that the hotel provided was slim pickings, just bagels, English muffins, and cereal. We ate just a little hoping to find a nice place to eat for an early break. It turns out we never did! We checked out at 11:00, bought gas at the gas station 1 block away, and then started down on the Tok Cut-off Hwy 1 toward Glennallen.
It got colder as we headed south. We decided at a "Copper River Country" view/picture spot turn-out to get our electric jacket liners out. Getting those working felt sooo good. We were getting very cold before we got them out, but we were trying to be tough.
At the Gulkana intersection we bought gas and Eric helped a fellow rider who was on a KTM 950 Adventure make a temporary fix to his chain. They used our spare baling wire and our needle nose pliers. He was a guy who sells aftermarket KTM parts. He had used 2 master link pieces and they each had lost 1 side-plate of the link. They wired the open side of both links to hopefully keep both from falling out. We hope he made it to Anchorage and to his friend's shop.
Not much time had passed after we put on our electric jackets that the sun came out and it was another beautiful day. At the Glennallen junction we took the Richardson highway 4 south towards Valdez instead of Hwy 1 towards Anchorage. Further down the Richardson Hwy we took the Hwy 10 exit and rode the Edgerton Hwy about 33 miles to Chitina. As we approached Chitina it was beautiful and there were mountains all around us. By the time we got to Chitina it was about 17:30. To find a place to stay (and a place to eat) we could go north to find a B&B in Copper Center or instead ride the ~90 miles to Valdez, we decided to go for it and stay in Valdez for the night and then we could look into taking the ferry across to Whittier or Seward to save a lot of travel time.


We were very glad that we had made alterations to our original plans to travel the road to Valdez. That road to Valdez was one of the highlights of our trip. To get to Valdez by road you travel through the Thompson Pass and it was a fun road and indescribably gorgeous!

We saw Worthington Glacier on the road just north of Thompson pass and Valdez. We then continued into Valdez.


When we got into town we went to the Ferry Terminal to see if we could get on the next day’s ferry to Whittier. The terminal was still open and we got our bikes on the Standby list for the next morning’s 8:00 ferry. We checked into the Downtown B&B just before 20:30 and hurried to dinner. We had a wonderful Chinese meal, which tasted especially good after not really eating all day. We were both craving ice cream, but when we finally found the little hut that sold some, they had closed only 5 minutes prior. When we returned to our hotel, we each had a cup of hot chocolate and a donut before going to bed. We needed to get to sleep early because we needed to be at the Ferry Terminal by 07:00 for the 08:00 departure to Whittier.