Thompson Pass sits at 855 metres, which sounds like nothing until you remember that the sea is only a few dozen kilometres behind you. The Chugach Mountains rise straight out of Prince William Sound, they catch every storm that comes in off the Gulf of Alaska, and this notch in the range is where the weather gets wrung out. The pass is famous for snow. It holds Alaska's records for snowfall, with a single winter in the early 1950s piling up close to a thousand inches, and the highway crews who keep it open will tell you stories you only half believe.
In summer the story is gentler but still wide open. Coming up from Valdez you leave the water behind and climb through Keystone Canyon, a narrow slot with waterfalls dropping off the walls right beside the tarmac, then the valley widens and the trees thin out. By the top you are above most of the spruce, in country of tundra, rock and snowfields, with peaks standing around in every direction. The Richardson Highway is a proper two-lane road, well surfaced, with long, easy gradients rather than anything tight, so this is a pass for looking rather than for hustling. Wind can be strong up here, and even in July it is worth having a layer in the tank bag, because the temperature drops several degrees between Valdez and the summit.
The road has a longer history than most Alaskan highways. It began as a pack trail in the gold rush years, a way for prospectors to reach the interior without going through Canada, and it was later improved into a wagon road and then a highway. It carries the name of an army officer who oversaw the early Alaska road commission. At the Valdez end, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline finishes its eight-hundred-mile run, and the oil terminal across the bay is the reason the road is maintained as well as it is.
There is nothing at the pass in the way of fuel, so plan around Valdez, a town of a few thousand people with everything a rider needs, and Glennallen on the other side. Pull in at the wide gravel turnouts and give the weather a minute to show you what it intends to do. On a clear evening the light on the snow is long and gold and the whole place goes quiet. On a bad day the cloud sits on the road like a lid, and the right decision is coffee in Valdez and a second try tomorrow.