Valdez, AK

We spent a week in Valdez and thoroughly enjoyed it! Valdez is a pretty small town with only one grocery store, but it makes up for its lack of “town” with the sheer beauty of its surrounding landscape.

We knew we were in for something special as we drove through Keystone Canyon oooing and ahhhing over the many glaciers, waterfalls, and ice caves! Nicholas and Alex are standing in front of Bridal Veil Falls in the left photo. We had to chuckle about the name since we’d just seen a Bridal Veil Falls in Canada too. And then around the corner there was Horsetail Falls. Valdez should be known as the land of waterfalls! Everywhere you look you can see waterfalls cascading down the mountainside!

This was our breathtaking view for the week. Not bad, right? We weren’t mad about it.

There was a great marina not far from the RV park we stayed in. I just love all of those jagged mountains behind that calm beautiful water.

Did you know the town of Valdez moved in 1964? The entire town moved four miles down the coast to a more protected part of the coast after a tsunami generated by an earthquake destroyed the original town. You can drive down to the original town site. They have some interpretive signs explaining what happened with some old pictures of what once was. You can see some of the old roads and even a few of the old building foundations and what’s left of the dock in the top picture above. The tide was coming in or we would have gotten closer.

We were in Valdez over July 4th and our RV park had some celebrations! Ever wonder what it would be like to shoot fireworks in a place that never really gets dark? I think it was about 10:30pm-ish when we heard the pops and bangs start going off. We headed outside and enjoyed the show with everyone else in the park!

our favorite thing to do in Valdez was to drive down to the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery and try our hand at fishing! We hadn’t planned on salmon fishing while we were in Alaska, but so many people asked us if we were going to that we felt like maybe we should! We got permits, geared up and had such a good time! The boys all learned to really fish with Jerl and I got to take pics and watch for wildlife! It’s a great place to fish for salmon!

They each caught something and some amazing memories were made! I’m so glad all of those people asked if we were going to fish in Alaska…we would never have thought to do this with the boys and honestly, I think it’s a memory they’ll cherish for the rest of their lives.

When we went to clean the fish back at the marina, we found out that the eagles loved to sit on the fish guts shoot with the sea gulls. Jerl showed the boys how to fillet a fish (I think just Alex was actually interested in this).

We spent quite a lot of time at Solomon Gulch. We found ourselves going during high tide to watch the wildlife. The sea lions always put on a great show! They loved the high tide when they would come right up to the hatchery and feast. In the picture above…see the dark mass toward the bottom right? Those are salmon. Hundreds if not thousands of salmon.

All of those fish draw more than just birds and sea lions… We never actually saw a bear at the hatchery. I’m not sure what these rope barricades would do to protect us from an actual bear.

In the picture above, you can see the actual fish hatchery. Love those mountains!

Some smart birds. The birds let the sea lions do all the work for them during high tides. The sea lions would come in and eat their fill while leaving fish parts. When the tide when back out the birds would swoop in and fight over all the fish leftovers. The Bald Eagles even got in on the feasting. When the Eagles would swoop in all of the other birds would scatter. It was pretty funny to watch!

Solomon Gulch ended up being one of…maybe the…favorite memory of our time spent in Valdez. We spent a lot of time hanging out there.

There was a Ranger Station just down the road from our RV park that had a waterfall behind it. I didn’t get a great picture of it…but you could see where this waterfall started all the way up at the top of the mountain! Alex and Nicholas got to put on some bear skins and play at being bears. We got to see up close the differences between the grizzly and the black bear.

We drove to the edge of town to look at the Valdez Glacier. When we got to the dirt road that takes you back to it, we found the basting zone sign. It made us pause for a few minutes. Apparently, they warn you before they blow stuff up though…so we risked it. You can kind of see the glacier there in the center of the top photo above. We couldn’t get very close to it so we didn’t stay long. They were actually there working right next to where you have to stand to see the glacier so, I’m thinking it wasn’t really very safe to be there.

The last thing we did in Valdez was visit the Worthington Glacier! It’s definitely a must see if you’re ever in Valdez!

We walked the trail all the way to the glacier where we stood in awe before having to touch it. We ventured into the cave just far enough to snap some pictures and watch the waterfall. The blue was breathtaking!

Nicholas and Alex had to have their pictures taken while they were sitting on the glacier. It’s super cold. Go figure. Ha!

When we turned around to leave we saw how gorgeous the view was going the other way too! We’d been so intent on the glacier we hadn’t even noticed it. Valdez is going on our list of places we want to revisit someday. We loved everything about it.

And just so you know…bears use picnic tables too.

See y’all down the road!

#alaskabound